Preface
The BeagleBone Black is an embedded system that is able to run an embedded GNU/Linux distribution as well as normal (and powerful) distributions like Debian or Ubuntu, and to which the user can connect several external peripherals via two dedicated expansion connectors.
Because it has powerful distribution capabilities with an easily expandable embedded board, the BeagleBone Black system is a state-of-the-art device that allows the user to build powerful and versatile monitoring and controlling applications.
This book presents several home automation prototypes in both hardware and software in order to explain to you how we can use the BeagleBone Black board connected with several devices to control your home.
Each prototype is discussed in its respective chapter in both hardware and software, explaining all the connections and the software packages necessary to manage several peripherals. Then, the code to glue all of it together is explained in detail till the final test of each project.
The hardware devices used in this book have been chosen in order to cover all the possible connection types we can encounter while working with a BeagleBone Black board, so you will find I2C, SPI, USB, 1-Wire, serial, and digital and analog devices.
The programming languages used in this book have been chosen according to the rule to find the quickest and easiest solution to solve the current problem; in particular, you can find example code in Bash, C, PHP, Python, HTML, and even JavaScript.
Note
Warning! All the projects in this book are prototypes and cannot be used as final applications.
Neither the author of this book nor Packt Publishing recommend or endorse these products to be used alone or as a component in any application without the necessary modifications to turn these prototypes into final products.
Neither the author of this book nor Packt Publishing will be held liable for unauthorized use of these prototypes. The user can use both the hardware and software of these devices at their own risk!
In the chapters where we will need to use a daemon or a kernel module, or where we will need to recompile the whole kernel, I've added a short description about what the reader should do and where they can get more information regarding the tools used; however, some basic skills in managing a GNU/Linux system, the kernel's modules, or the kernel itself are required (the reader can take a look at the book BeagleBone Essentials, Packt Publishing, written by the author of this book, in order to have more information about these topics).
