What this book covers
Chapter 1, Dangerous Gas Sensors, will show how to use the BeagleBone Black to monitor some dangerous gases such as CO, Methane, LPG, and so on in a room and how to enable an acoustic and visive alarm in case of danger. Also, by using a GSM module, the user will be able to send an SMS message to a predefined phone number to alert, for instance, a relative.
Chapter 2, Ultrasonic Parking Assistant, will show how to use the BeagleBone Black to implement a park assistant. We will use an ultrasonic sensor to detect the distance between our car and the garage wall, and some LEDs to give feedback to the driver about the car's position in order to avoid collisions.
Chapter 3, Aquarium Monitor, will show how to make an aquarium monitor through which we'll be able to record all the environment data as well as control the life of our beloved fish from a web panel on our PC, smartphone, or tablet.
Chapter 4, Google Docs Weather Station, will take a look at a simple weather station that can also be used as an Internet-of-Things device. This time, our BeagleBone Black will collect environment data and will send them to a remote database (a Google Docs spreadsheet) in order to be reworked and presented into a shared environment.
Chapter 5, WhatsApp Laundry Room Monitor, will present an implementation of a laundry monitor room with several sensors capable of alerting the user directly on their WhatsApp account when a specific event occurs.
Chapter 6, Baby Room Sentinel, will present a possible implementation of a baby room sentinel capable of monitoring the room by detecting if the baby is crying or if the baby is actually breathing during sleep. Also, as a special feature, the system will be able to measure the baby's temperature with a contactless temperature sensor.
Chapter 7, Facebook Plant Monitor, will show how to implement a plant monitor capable of measuring light, soil moisture, and soil temperature (in the soil and outside it), and how to take some pictures, at specific intervals, via a webcam, and then publishing them on a Facebook timeline.
Chapter 8, Intrusion Detection System, will show how we can implement a low cost intrusion detection system with a reasonable quality level by using our BeagleBone Black and two (or more) webcams. The system will be able to alert the user by sending an e-mail message with a photo of the intruder.
Chapter 9, Twitter Access Control System with Smart Card and RFID, will show how to use a smart card reader as well as two kinds of RFID reader (LF and UHF) in order to show different ways to implement a minimal identification system for access control that can send an alert message to a Twitter account.
Chapter 10, A Lights Manager with a TV Remote Controller, will show how to manage a simple on/off device connected to our BeagleBone Black by using a TV remote controller or any infraredcapable device.
Chapter 11, A Wireless Home Controller with Z-Wave, will present how to implement a little wireless home controller by using a Z-Wave controller connected to our BeagleBone Black and two Z-Wave devices: a wall plug and a multisensor device.
