Automate Home Electricals With Relays and Arduino

There are countless home automation products on the market today, but what if you want to take a DIY approach to create your own smart home? This can be achieved with a relay, Arduino, and a button or sensor; you just need to do some learning to get started.

This guide covers mains voltage electricals. Working with high-voltage electricity is dangerous without the right precautions. You must make sure that your devices are unplugged when you work on them, as well as having an understanding of electricity and basic circuits to stay safe.

DIY Home Electrical Automation

The approach to home automation we are tackling in this project is quite a simple one. It will focus on turning a single electrical device on and off using a relay, Arduino, and a simple push button. It will also take you through some of the other component options to replace the push button and further automate your home.

What Is a Relay?

A relay lies at the heart of this project, acting as an electronic switch that is controlled by an Arduino. As electrical switches, relays open and close based on digital signals received from a computer or microcontroller board. This makes them ideal for DIY home automation, as they work well with Arduinos and other basic boards.

What You Need for This DIY Home Automation Project

You need a few different components to get started with this project. Most of these components are essential to the project, but you can swap out the button for something else if you want to change your control method.

• Any Arduino Microcontroller Board: You can use any Arduino board for this project. We picked an Arduino Pro Micro because they are nice and small, but an Uno would work just as well.
• A 5V Active Low Relay Board: You can find relay board with one, two, four, and eight channels. Choose one that matches the number of electrical devices it needs to control.
• Push Button and 10kΩ Resistor (Optional): Our DIY automation project uses a button to activate the relay, but you can choose from a range of other components that we will explore later.
• An Electronic Device: This final part is the electronic device you want to automate. We picked a lamp for our project, but you can use anything that matches the specifications of your relay.

Read More: Automate Home Electricals With Relays and Arduino – MakeUseOf