Maker Steps
We recommend an incremental approach to assembling the circuits and programming the microcontrollers, following the steps below.
1
Connect Microcontroller Boards
Basic
Mount the boards on breadboards, connect them to your computer using the required USB cable, and test with a basic program.
2
Power Connections
Basic
Mount the breadboard power supply on breadboards and complete the power connections across all microcontrollers and breadboards.
3
LCD Display
Basic
Connect the shared I2C LCD to both Nanos and the Pico and program them to display data on the LCD.
4
Access Control Circuit (Nano 1)
Basic
Connect the keypad and RFID reader to the microcontroller and program it to read the input data and process it.
5
Nano Sensors (Nano 2)
Basic
Connect the sensors to the microcontroller and program it to read the input data and process it and send it to the ESP32 over LoRa.
6
Pico Sensors, Relay, and Servo Motor
Basic
Connect the sensors to the microcontroller and program it to send data to the ESP32 over LoRa and to receive signals from the ESP32 to control the relay and motor.
7
Setup and Configure the MQTT Broker
Basic
Setup the MQTT Broker with the publish and subscribe topics to be used by Node-RED and the ESP32 to exchange data with the IoT app.
8
Setup Node-RED and Configure Flows
Basic
Setup Node-RED on a computer and configure the flows to publish sensor data to and read device control signals from the MQTT broker.
9
IoT App and MQTT
Intermediate
Install the IoT app on an Android phone and configure the app to read sensor data from and send control signals to the MQTT server.
At this point you would have three fully functional circuits publishing data to the MQTT broker using Node-RED. You also have the IoT app using which you can view sensor data and send control signals from your smart phone.
⚠️
If you would like to move on to more advanced concepts, the next set of steps introduces the ESP32 which provides WiFi and BLE connectivity and inter-circuit communication using UART and LoRa.
10
ESP32 Circuit
Intermediate
Connect the OLED and the LoRA module to the ESP32 and program it to display data on the OLED.
11
UART Data Exchange
Intermediate
Make all required UART (Serial) connections between boards and program them to exchange data with each other.
12
LoRa Communication
Intermediate
Connect one LoRa module to the Nano 2 and one to the ESP32 and program the two boards to exchange data over LoRa.
13
ESP32 WiFi and MQTT
Advanced
Update the ESP32 program to connect to a WiFi network and publish data to the MQTT broker.
14
ESP32 BLE
Advanced
Program the ESP32 to connect to and exchange data with the IoT App over (Bluetooth Low Energy) BLE.
15
IoT App with BLE
Advanced
Install the IoT app on an Android mobile phone and configure the app to connect to the ESP32 over BLE and to read data from the sensors to send control signals to devices.
Congratulations! You have successfully built a Smart Home solution!