Cheap(ish) Home Automation with the #RaspberryPi

The Foundation has just published this blog post which has Amy Mather controlling electrical sockets via a Raspberry Pi. She’s using an Energenie GPIO plugin board and extension block and controlling it via Python on the Pi. You can get hold of a starter pack of this system from Energenie for £19.99 (including VAT and delivery) which will give you the GPIO board and two socket adapters. Take a look here.

I’ve not tried one of these myself but they look like a great way to get into home automation without a load of re-wiring.

#RaspberryPi Foundation LCD display inches closer

The long-awaited LCD from the Foundation may be a bit closer now after Eben Upton revealed to PCR that, on the 23rd June, he had signed off on a purchase order for a prototype PCB. The screen, which is expected to include multi-touch and could be any size between 7″ and 10″ has been floating around since last year and some of us saw a prototype (see picture above) at the Raspberry Jamboree in March. At that time, Alex Eames from RasPi.tv was able to find out the following specs:

  • 10 point capacitive touch.
  • 7 inch LCD (which could be larger in the final version)
  • 800 x 480 pixel resolution

Read the full piece from PCR here.

TiddlyBot – the cute and cuddly #RaspberryPi robot from @ThePiBot

Harry Gee and the Agilic team have just launched a Kickstarter to raise funds for their TiddlyBot. It’s a very simple, very small robot powered by the Pi. It’s designed to be used for education, either in schools or at home, and comes with software to develop a web interface to control the bot.

Price-wise, it’s very competitive with the current Earlybird kit coming in at $44 (including delivery). You can get the controller board by itself (although if you’re in the EU or US, you wouldn’t want to due to an added delivery cost). You can also buy a kit complete with a Raspberry Pi Model A for $93, and with a camera module as well for $115. There’s also a school’s pack with 10 of the main kits for $390 (which gives a nice saving).

At those price points, it’s very exciting. One interesting thing is that it doesn’t seem to have a ‘third wheel’ yet in the video (below) it doesn’t seem to have any problems balancing.

Having seen the larger PiBot (which hasn’t been released as a Kickstarter yet), I’m confident in saying that the build quality is good and I reckon if you’re trying to get into robotics then this kit represents a great starting point.

The TiddlyBot is expected to ship in October and has a month to raise the $27,000 necessary for funding.

And, oh yeah, it’s shaped like a tadpole, which is kinda cool 🙂

You can view the Kickstarter here.