There are many products in the market that allow remote building energy control. Most are very expensive or only allow 1 way communication to turn circuits on / off. The goal of this project is to use low power / low cost uPs to securely communicate across a network of devices located in remote buildings.
The system can be used for remote building energy monitoring and control.
The system consists of the following components:
1. A central server that pings the gateway controllers located in the buildings. The server also gathers energy usage and sends commands to lower the usage or turn off a device via the Internet or GSM if Internet is not available at the building.
2. Each site will have a network gateway that communicates with the central server. The gateway connects to a network of local building nodes via zigbee.
3. Each local node can exchange sensor data with the gateway, such as temperature, energy usage, switch settings, etc. The communication is bidirectional and the gateway can send commands to enable / disable relays, etc.
The goal of this project is to provide this functionality for a low cost, but in a secure and industrial grade manner for widespread use. A secondary goal is to allow a layperson (not an electrician or programmer) to install and configure the system with minimal fuss.
(complete instructions)