Fish’n Tweets

Fish’n Tweets:

With this project we’ll show a practical application of our Fishino board that allows a very simple and cheap way to control remote appliances as lamps, heaters, climatizers, alarms, etc.

The peculiarity of our system is that it doesn’t need any external support server nor special network interface boards, but just a Fishino UNO board and possibly one or more relay boards to drive connected loads. This application which can’t be done with a simple Arduino, even not if provided with a common WiFi or Ethernet shield, has been made possible by Fishino’s capability to handle secure connections with HTTPS protocol, which is usually available on more expensive boards; to stay into Arduino world, now at least a YUN board is needed to achieve same purpose, and with a more complex software.

There are many possibilities for the remote control of electric appliances, each with own Pro and Cons.

Let’s see an incomplete list of them:

• Control by SMS – Advantages:
  
  • Receiver can be portable and independent of network infrastructures
  • Fast – commands are executed almost instantly
  • Can be controlled from any cell phone, even from older ones
  • Practically unlimited rangeCaveats:
  • A SIM card is needed on controlled board, which usually has an expiration time
  • It needs a GSM board, not very cheap
  • It needs GSM network coverage, not everywhere available

• Radio control – Advantages:
  
  • Receiver can be portable and independent of network infrastructures
  • Fast – commands are executed almost instantly
  • Very chealCaveats:
  • Very limited range
  • Range depends on obstacles between sender and receiver

• Remote control over internet – Advantages:
  
  • Can be made portabled at the price of a GPRS board
  • Can be controlled by any PC or recent cell phone
  • Quite cheap if you’ve a network infrastructure in place
  • Can be made bidirectional with no costCaveats:
  • A network infrasctructure or a GPRS board is needed, which can be expensive
  • Stability depends on network conditions
  • Response times can be very variable
  • Often it needs complicated boards and/or support external PC
  • Usually a public IP or a way to bypass this limitation is needed,
  • Security problems are always possible

Fishino UNO