Nodo Small revival project

[Martinus]

My house is still populated with some of these boards (Nodo Arduino, similar to Nodo Small):

NodoSmall.jpg (88.39 KiB) Viewed 16581 times

and some Nodo Small variants, using only a 433MHz transmitter to save money:

ESP_Slave1.JPG (86.2 KiB) Viewed 16581 times

(to be honest, i do not have any native ESP Easy running at all...)

Some of them have ESP Wifi added, using the Nodo Bridge, but it's time to think about a new approach and modernize the stuff. The Nodo comes with a powerful programmable 'eventlist' so it can act as a decentralized mini-controller. I started the ESP rules engine mainly for testing purposes but it may have become powerful enough to handle over control from Nodo to ESP Easy.

But i do not want to waste the Nodo boards because they can control all my 433MHz based lighting as decentralized units without needing any other Home Automation like Domoticz.

List of ideas:

1) Rework on the old ESP Connexio project. Unstable and way beyond ESP Easy development. Likely a no-go
2) Convert the Nodo project to a smart slave for ESP Easy. Could take months or more. Likely a no-go
3) Build plugins for ESP Easy that can do the same as the Nodo Small. This was an earlier idea but it would still waste the existing Nodo hardware.
4) Use a customized RFLink, based on the open source edition that turns the Nodo Small into a smart addon for ESP Easy. This one i like because it also offloads ESP Easy for complicated RF work.

So idea #4 is to let them act as a 'smart peripheral' to ESP Easy. A bit like the Pro Mini extender. But i need RF 433MHz Kaku support on all of them and RFLink already has that support. Nodo has it too, but the Nodo project is EOL for more than a year. And Nodo needs a complicated eventlist while RFlink could be 'drop and forget'.

So currently tinkering with the open source RFLink edition to run it on the old Nodo Arduino board. Very limited, but still possible. And i only need one or two RFLink plugins.

I'm posting all this "thinking out load" because i would like to know if more people are interested in this development. I will also post it on the Nodo forum as there may be other people in the same situation as me.

[Martinus]

Did some testing yesterday with the customized RFLink and idea #4 looks promising.

My very first Nodo Arduino (purchased in 2011) has been running smooth for 5 years. Controlling several lighting schemes downstairs, outside and garden lights. But now it will start it's second life, likely for another few years... Same job, new features. Using the webgui to configure the rules makes life easier than to program the Nodo eventlist the old way...

ESPRFLinkSmall.JPG (85.7 KiB) Viewed 16546 times

It should also work with the more recent Nodo Small. These are likely more sold than the original Nodo Arduino boards (but i don't have one of these):

NSM.jpg (188.55 KiB) Viewed 16546 times

I've also added a few commands to this "RFLinkSmall" edition so i can use already most of the Nodo Small hardware features:

10;FREEMEM ;- just for debugging
10;SOUND;<frequency>;<duration msec>; - to beep the build in buzzer
10;GPIO;<pin>;<0/1>; - Direct control the output pins
10;STATUS;<pin>; - Request to send analog or digital pin values

[ILoveIOT]

Why don't we restart the whole nodo project, based on the V3.7 (r744) core and everything in English, and not so based on one person ? I'am not a C++ programmer, but other language is no problem, also maybe thinking to simple, but got allot of time. The "world" should be in our hands
I guess there's are allot of people (like myself) they want a sort of arduino ethernet solution, but it must be super duper stable.

I guess you want a solution only for the small Arduino's, without ethernet, with wifi, but maybe we can stretch this project so more people can use it, with also the arduino mega's or uno's, ethernet, wifi, there is no project at the moment what even come close to the nodo project, maybe ESPEasy for the wifi solutions.

I'am using youre Domoticz Nodo Arduino ethernet solution, still many thanks for that, I'am really loving it, its working great, using also the eventlist allot, for local processing, you could even have a mega with ethernet in youre car, doing offline processing while not connected, and when its connect, do more processing, so the local and remote (offline/online) processing is great. For another example, I need only the arduino and relay for switching a light, the domoticz server could be crashed or offline, so you're light will be on in the room, when you investigate the problem for the domoticz server btw cant remember when that happends, but its the idea, systems should work when problems occur.

Ref : http://www.nodo-domotica.nl/forum/viewt ... 120#p15109

(ps loving youre ESPEasy project to, got now one NodeMCUv3 in production (lol..mailbox..outside) much better then the single chip, at least for me, but I prefer a solution with a network cable where possible, love the cheap hardware and I guess its a must, but dont mind the cost of a 50M cat5 cable,..typical, I saw some hits on "minipro ethernet",..lol)

[tozett]

what about opening "nodo" to the ESP-World?

i dont know what nodo is. i think it controls 433MhZ devices.
but why do you need special hardware-devices? may you only need one "bridge", and use ESPeasy as the main "brain" for all the logic?

it that is likely possible, that could lead to focus an expanding or further development of ESPeasy and a bridge to the nodo-world.
(i dont know, what use one can silltmake with somehow "oldschool" nodo-devices )

[ILoveIOT]

i dont know what nodo is

Nodo is a great big Arduino project (but it looks at the moment end of life), where you can use different Arduino's, mega, minipro, uno, with several device's, also some RF devices, IR, switches, relays, special nodo shields with IR, RF433, Clock, SPK etc, ethernet shield, nodo 2 nodo (master/slave), we used it in combination with a web application (like domoticz, but we used it over the internet) So no internet (somethimes in my case) no switching at all.

Here you see an example of the plugin's for the Nodo project, just give you a short idea of the supported hardware, this project was very active before the esp8266 chip.
http://www.nodo-domotica.nl/index.php/Plugin
http://www.nodo-domotica.nl/index.php/NodoShowCase

If I'am reading it right, Martinus want to use his "older" hardware and fork it into the future, with a webbased eventlist, with a lite version of the nodo project, but maybe, very maybe, there are enough interested people for restarting the complete project.

This is perhaps the worst explanation there is,..but I tried.

[tim]

I got my hands on a second-hand original Nodo shield that i currenty use for RFLink on a Mega with a special adapter cable. I'm thinking of ordering a new RFLink board from the Nodo shop that has the option for the Milight control using NRF module.

And then the Nodo shield becomes free for other use. I also have an old Arduino Uno board without purpose.
Can i put this Nodo Shield on top of Arduino Uno and use it as a Nodo Small with this customized RFLink version?

And how to connect ESP to this combination?

[tim]

but it looks at the moment end of life

Sure looks like that. Forum is abandoned. Github source has not been updated for more than a year. Last wiki update goes back 17 months.

I just checked the forum and Paul made the last post on sept 13th, 2015. I've never seen any formal statement about the project status, but it looks dead to me. I wonder what happened with all those Nodo users. Did they all move to Domoticz?

I also found this comment on the forum by one of the Nodo team members a few months ago:

Nodo is niet echt dood, alleen staat de ontwikkeling op dit moment stil

run through google translate:

Nodo is not really dead, only capable of developing at this time still.

funny translation

[Martinus]

I got my hands on a second-hand original Nodo shield that i currenty use for RFLink on a Mega with a special adapter cable. I'm thinking of ordering a new RFLink board from the Nodo shop that has the option for the Milight control using NRF module.

And then the Nodo shield becomes free for other use. I also have an old Arduino Uno board without purpose.
Can i put this Nodo Shield on top of Arduino Uno and use it as a Nodo Small with this customized RFLink version?

And how to connect ESP to this combination?

That should work. Consider that the very first Nodo was based on the Arduino Duemilanove board.
The Nodo shield was designed for that board in the first place.
The Uno is just an improved version of the Duemilanove.
As far as i know, the Nodo was called Nodo Due back then...

[tim]

@martinus: do you know more about the Nodo project status? You were a member of the Nodo dev team right?

[Martinus]

@martinus: do you know more about the Nodo project status? You were a member of the Nodo dev team right?

I was, but I left the Nodo team a long time ago and may not be at liberty to make statements about the project.
Better check with Remco on that subject.

[ILoveIOT]

I wonder what happened with all those Nodo users. Did they all move to Domoticz?

Some people will still using the webapp, I guess but the majority, like me, moved to Domoticz, some bought a crappy expensive system, hehe

With all the respect for the people, maybe its a idea to have a sort of poll, here and on the Nodo forum, so we can see how many people are interested for this ? If not, its a quick done deal

[Martinus]

Today has been a productive day so far and migration to RFLinkSmall makes quite some progress. Already converted 4 units to RFLinkSmall on the ATMega328 MCU, connected to the ESP01-1M modules (OTA capable!). All running the latest ESP Easy R133 that can communicate with RFLink using the rules engine.

RFLinkSmall.JPG (127.7 KiB) Viewed 14859 times

So now I have the combined power of RFLink and ESP Easy into some small and cheap boxes. Most of them have a cheap but perfectly working RF433MHz transmitter. They can be controlled using Domoticz but they can also control stuff on their own. Like the IR gateway (top left in the picture) bridges my Logitech Harmony remote signals to all KaKu lights in the livingroom using ESP Easy rules:

Code: Select all

on !RFLink#Kaku;ID=44;SWITCH=1;CMD=ON; do
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;1;2;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;2;7;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;3;5;
endon

on !RFLink#Kaku;ID=44;SWITCH=1;CMD=OFF; do
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;1;OFF;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;2;OFF;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;3;OFF;
endon

The Logitech remote emulates an old kaku style RF remote with IR signals. So RFLinkSmall receives Kaku commands and sends them to ESP Easy.
The ESP Easy rules engine then controls three Kaku lights with preset dim values.

This should even work without Wifi available...

[Mariete]

I can't find any information on the RFLinkSmall. Where can I know more about it?

I already have a RFLink but would like to include a cheap and easy RFLinkSmall to cover some dead spots in my house

[data]

Until we find out what RFLinkSmall is all about, maybe you can utilize either the

RF 433 plugin for KAKU in the playground
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2032

or the nexa-plugin from milan.gsm / qadra.sk?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1103&p=5219&hilit=qadra#p5219

Both compile just fine with R147_RC8

On the other hand, I'd also like to know where to get either sources or a binary
of a stripped down RFLink for an Arduino nano.

[Markie]

Today has been a productive day so far and migration to RFLinkSmall makes quite some progress. Already converted 4 units to RFLinkSmall on the ATMega328 MCU, connected to the ESP01-1M modules (OTA capable!). All running the latest ESP Easy R133 that can communicate with RFLink using the rules engine.
RFLinkSmall.JPG
So now I have the combined power of RFLink and ESP Easy into some small and cheap boxes. Most of them have a cheap but perfectly working RF433MHz transmitter. They can be controlled using Domoticz but they can also control stuff on their own. Like the IR gateway (top left in the picture) bridges my Logitech Harmony remote signals to all KaKu lights in the livingroom using ESP Easy rules:

Code: Select all

on !RFLink#Kaku;ID=44;SWITCH=1;CMD=ON; do
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;1;2;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;2;7;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;3;5;
endon

on !RFLink#Kaku;ID=44;SWITCH=1;CMD=OFF; do
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;1;OFF;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;2;OFF;
  delay 1000
  SerialSend 10;NewKaku;004b26d6;3;OFF;
endon

The Logitech remote emulates an old kaku style RF remote with IR signals. So RFLinkSmall receives Kaku commands and sends them to ESP Easy.
The ESP Easy rules engine then controls three Kaku lights with preset dim values.



This should even work without Wifi available...

Martinus , do you have a schedule for me how you connected the esp to the arduino.
I myself have an old nodo slave with a 868 mhz receiver for my dkw2012 and would like to continue through the esp to domoticz

Mark