IoT, Internet of Things, is not rocket science anymore. Grab an ESP8266 WiFi module, a USB-to-serial adapter and few wires later you are programming it through the familiar Arduino IDE. The most annoying part is providing 3.3 V at 300+ mA as power supply. That's about 10 USD if you already have a computer for programming.
For this initial test I am uploading my shack room temperature to thingspeak.com in the "
ZYW Home" channel.
The circuit reads temperature every 60 seconds (almost 62 seconds, actually) and uploads it to the cloud. The temperature sensor is a 1-wire DS18B20. The dashboard shows the average temperature in buckets of 10 minutes and how many measurements have been made since power-on.
Incidentally the latter number provides two more information:
- power outage at home if "cycles" restart from 1
- xDSL outage or problems if there is a gap or no data upload
I want to add another temperature sensor for outside and, when ESP-201 modules will come, a solar panel for reading solar illumination. Since ESP-201 allows deep-sleep state, the whole thing could even be battery powered and solar recharged.
