Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6. Hack a Commercial Home
Automation Device
In the previous chapters, we used Arduino boards and other components to build home
automation systems from scratch. In this chapter, we are going to take another approach to
building home automation systems.
We will take a basic power switch that you can easily buy off the shelf in stores and hack it
by inserting an Arduino system inside it. This way, we are going to build a USB-controlled
power switch based on Arduino.
The following will be the major takeaways from this chapter:
• First, we are going to see how to choose the device to hack, and which components
you will need to hack the device. We are also going to take care of the different
software modules needed.
• Then, we will open up the device to hack and replace most of what is inside with
an Arduino board and a relay module.
• We will then upload some code to the Arduino board to check if the hardware is
working correctly. At this stage, we are already going to command the device re-
motely from the Arduino IDE.
• Finally, we are going to build a web-based interface to control the device directly
from your web browser.
