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I'm just getting into the Raspberry Pi and love the idea of home automation. I'd like to use the Raspberry Pi to turn on/off lights, control the thermostat, and possibly a few other tasks in the future. However, I don't own a home. I live in a recently built apartment. I'd really like the idea of having wifi enabled outlets, but I'm don't believe I can safely take out the electrical outlets in my apartment. Also, I doubt the management for apartment would do it for me. I've seen plug in adapters for outlets as an alternative, but I haven't found any that are that attractive. Are there affordable and practical wifi solutions to control lights with the Raspberry Pi for an apartment?

Also, the digital thermostat installed in my apartment does not support wifi. Are there wifi enabled thermostats that are affordable that I could install in my apartment without causing any damage to the wall?

wwwuser
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  1. short answer -- please, don't, because Raspberry Pi is a wonderful piece of hardware to play with, it's going to be a waste to use it for such a mundane task -- turning lights on and off.

  2. wifi is very expensive and basically overkill, when plain old X10 or RF module will suffice.

lenik
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As far as your thermostat question, yes, there are WiFi enabled thermostats available, but they are expensive, up to $250 USD.

Another option is to replace your thermostat(s) with relay(s) controlled by the GPIO pins of the pi. All your thermostat does is allow current to pass through it when the heat needs to come on. This can easily be done remotely from the pi with an opto isolated relay, not wireless, but easy to work with. You would then have to integrate temp sensor for each heating zone in your house, and write a script to control when to turn on and off the relay.

I found this thread where someone is controlling multiple relays from a pi. May be good for reference.

Butters
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The UniPi hardware sounds perfect for this!

Go to UniPi.technology and check out what they have to offer. Basically it is a module that has 8 relays, tons of inputs, temperature sensors, and much more!

Chris Cummings
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Take a look at this to control lights: - relatively cheap - easy to use

http://docs.spacebrew.cc/tutorials/2013/2/6/power-switch-tail-contorl-any-ac-electrical-device-remotely-via-spacebrew

user8251
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