Home Heat Hub
1.4 Home Heat Hub – Raspberry Pi
The initial experimentation was conducted using a Raspberry Pi Model B+ which performed well with
all attached hardware devices.
Multiple Python scripts were written to achieve a fully functioning thermostat with LCD and menu
control. The device was able to act as the webserver by configuring Apache and a MySQL database.
The web site also performed well as a control interface for the Raspberry Pi GPIOs, updating temperature and humidity readings to the web interface and controlling the heating relay via PHP
script. Going wireless was a simple task by using a USB Wifi dongle on one of the available Raspberry
Pi’s USB ports.
Figure 1.1 – Raspberry Pi Home Heat Hub web interface
The 16×2 LCD was wired up using 4-bit parallel data transmission lines.
However well the Raspberry Pi performed it was decided that it would not be a suitable choice of MCU
for this specific purpose. It is a highly over-powered, multipurpose tool and too expensive to use as a
prototype, the rational of the Home Heat Hub is to provide a low cost solution.
