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com/technology-trends/get-set-start-arduino-programming
https://electronicsforu.com/arduino-basics-schematics
https://electronicsforu.com/technology-trends/top-ten-features-wi-fi-connectivity-iot/2
https://electronicsforu.com/videos-slideshows/slideshows-presentations/introduction-electronic-payment-system
The ESP8266s maximum voltage is 3.6V, that means its has a 3.3V regulator to deliver a safe, consistent voltage to the IC. Now, ESP8266s I/O pins also run at 3.3V and user
will have to level shift any 5V signals running into the IC. As it turns out the there is a good reason that some Youtube videos have surfaced recently with developers are trying to
churn out 500 meters to a couple miles of transmission capability from this module.
How it works:
The ESP8266 has a full TCP/UDP stack support. It can also be easily configured as a web server. The module accepts commands via a simple serial interface. It then responds
back with the operations outcome (assuming everything is running correctly). Also, once the device is connected and is set to accept connections, it will send unsolicited messages
whenever a new connection or a new request is issued.
http://electronicsofthings.com/iot-projects/make-build-iot/esp8266-wifi-module/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqPBQydOVcg
Raspberry Pi and your LED/LCD TV could be a very interesting combination to try out various DIY projects at home. One such great project is converting your
LED/LCD TV into a smart TV and/or a local home media centre.
Fig. 1: Home media centre with
Raspberry Pi
The overall process of turning your LED TV into a smart TV and/or home media centre is mentioned below. But before we start, it is assumed that you are familiar
with home-networking concepts of IP address, secure shell (SSH) and Telnet access for Raspberry Pi, setting up OS image on SD card to boot Raspberry Pi, etc.
As mentioned earlier, I choose to go with raspbmc for my setup. Depending on your home PC or laptop OS, there are different instructions/steps available on
www.raspbmc.com to install the raspbmc image on your SD card. The basic steps are:
1. Take a blank SD card. Recommended is a Class 10 (for better performance) and at least with 4GB of space. I used a Class 10 SD card with 16GB of space for my
setup.
2. Visit www.raspbmc.com and read proper instructions (i.e., for windows, OSX or Linux) and download the image of raspbmc.
3. Move the raspbmc image to the SD card. Please note that this will reformat the SD card and you would lose all your previous content, if any.
Now you are ready to plug the SD card to your Pi and boot it up. Since there are numerous articles and videos available online for setting/installing raspbmc, it is not
important to delve into those steps here.
Step 3: Establishing Wi-Fi connectivity for XBMC. Once you see the XBMC welcome screen, do some basic configuration and set up Wi-Fi connectivity, which will
bail you out from the need of having a permanent wired LAN connection for Raspberry Pi and your TV.
1. Plug in your Wi-Fi dongle (I used a nano Wi-Fi dongle with 802.11n support) into the USB port. Now there are only two USB ports in Raspberry Pi, so you will
have to use a USB port hub to get extra USB ports available to plug in Wi-Fi dongle in addition to the existing USB keyboard and mouse. Please note that the USB
hub should have its own power supply.
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Now you are all set with a Wi-Fi network connection and you can safely unplug the wired LAN cable.
At this point, it is advised to shut down or reboot the Raspberry Pi using the power off icon on the bottom-left corner of the XBMC screen. In this way, all software
updates, installations and configurations would be saved and will be available on the next start-up.
Step 4: Making smartphone/And-roid phone as a remote control. Now it is time to control the entire XBMC screen and menu options remotely with your own
Android- or IOS-powered phone. It is assumed that you have an android-powered touch phone or an iPhone, and you know how to connect it to your home Wi-Fi
network and locate and install apps from respective app stores.
1. Search for XBMC remote app in the respective app marketplace. You will see numerous apps listed. You can install any free app.
2. Open the app, go to settings and enter the connection details (IP address) as shown for your Raspberry Pi + XBMC. You can check your XBMC IP address through
SystemSystem Info menu option also.
3. Next, on your XBMC go to SystemServices options screen and enable Remote control option and services.
4. Press connect the XBMC remote app on your phone.
Now you can navigate the XBMC and even unplug the USB keyboard and mouse using Raspberry Pi.
Step 5: Setting up some add-ons and accessing YouTube. Next, you may explore some of the cool add-ons and embellish your raspbmc setup with nice functions.
You can explore various music add-ons to listen to online radio or MP3 sources over Internet, or picture add-ons such as Picasa or Flickr to view online photo
albums. Also, there are various add-ons under video menu, which will bring the huge pool of video content to your TV from sources like live TV sites, or Discovery
Channel or NASA videos or Khan Academy or YouTube. Then there are a host of program add-ons which bring in functionalities like accessing your mail, IRC Chat
or Facebook content, or even some games like Sudoku and Tetris.
Note that watching and accessing online content requires decent bandwidth speed (around 2 Mbps or more) and lot of monthly data usage; so make sure you have both
in abundance.
Troubleshooting tips
During setup I faced a couple of issues and so thought of listing down some of them under this section as there is no single online article or video which
comprehensively captures these issues. The solution to these issues is located across various community forums and discussion boards, and extensive research is
needed to get the right answers.
1. Intermittent hang-up of Raspberry Pi. A couple of times during setup, Raspberry Pi becomes unresponsiverequiring it to be turned off and on to resume the
setup/configuration. After a bit of R&D, I found that the issue is related to a poor or unstable 5V DC supply. So please make sure that you have plugged in a reliable
5V DC supply in Raspberry Pi with significant amperage. Refer to the link for more details:
2. No HDMI output. Whilst powering on Raspberry Pi, if your LCD/LED TV is not on, or is running from a different HDMI input source, Raspberry Pi/raspbmc does
not send any output on its HDMI port, even when you switch the HDMI in TV to the one plugged in from Raspberry Pi.
This gets resolved by making the below-mentioned entries in the /boot/config.txt file in raspbmc.
hdmi_force_hotplug=1
hdmi_drive=2
You need to SSH/Telnet into raspbmc using pi user id (default password is raspberry) and do a sudo vi/boot/config.txt to edit it.
3. Issue with Bluetooth/wireless keyboard. Later on I also bought a wireless keyboard with touchpad (Logitech K400r) to comfortably browse and explore raspbmc.
You need to plug the USB dongle (Bluetooth or the one that comes with your wireless keyboard) and the keyboard connects automatically. However, on subsequent
restarts, sometimes the wireless keyboard stops connecting. This gets resolved by making the below-mentioned entries in /etc/rc.local:
sleep 2
rmmod hid-logitech-dj
sleep 3
modprobe hid-logitech-dj
exit 0
I have not explored all the possibilities here, but there are numerous articles, blogs and self-help videos available online to get you going.
Nikhil is an architect working with a leading software development and service provider. He is based at Pune and has keen interest in technology and computers