[ale] semiOT: home automation

[ale_nospam at fayettedigital.com (Jim Lynch)]

On 05/20/2014 12:38 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
> Big Linux system with Internet access and killer firewall with USB to 
> RaspberryPi and/or Arduino. Those IO pins are quite capable.
>
I'd skip the Big Linux system and just communicate directly to a Pi.  
Use a Teensy 3.1 instead of the Arduino.  Many more I/O pins, more 
flexible, lots more memory, much faster.  Communications with the Pi 
over usb is dead simple.  The Teensy is a 3.1 v part but it is 5 V 
tolerant.  You have digitial I/O pins, ADC, DAC, I2C, SPI, and PWM on 
the Teensy 3.1.  Oh did I mention it's cheaper than the Arduino, can be 
programmed using the Arduino IDE and has a smaller footprint?

If you need a bit more power/memory and want a real disk drive, Consider 
the Cubie2 instead of the Pi.  It has SATA support on the board.  
There's a "baseboard" available that will give you lots of breakout and 
VGA if you need it.  The Cubie2 has HDMI though.  It's a bit more 
expensive at about $60 vs the Pi at $35.  Depending on what you want to 
do, it may be a better choice.

I'm using a Pi and Teensy to control some aspects of a FIRST FRC robot.

Jim.