Home Automation Questions

[imafigureskater]

He All - LOVE Adafruit, but if I am reading things right, I am going to need some parts that aren't here.

I am hoping to build an "arduino" based home automation system.

First, since I will have parts inside the wall (ie, I am replacing light switches), I am not sure what the best way to deal with getting 5v from mains. On the larger ones, I could actually rig a wall wart directly into one of the lines, but on smaller ones I am not sure that is possible. However, this problem, while important for the final solution, does not stop me from working towards a prototype.

Second, I need to switch loads obviously, but I don't see any relays listed here (if wrong, please point me to one - how do I go about finding a relay, I don't even know a part number to search for.

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As background, I took circuits way back in college on my way to a computer science (engineering) degree, so I understand in theory what I am doing and I am comfortable with working with the mains wires (I, at one point switched out every light switch in my house), but I have no practical experience in building the circuits.

Thanks all!

Danielle

[franklin97355]

Some good information here https://www.google.com/search?q=diy+home+automation+hardware&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&rlz=
As to what you need it will somewhat depend on how much you want to do. You may have to pull out some of the outlets and add bigger boxes for parts. Solid state relays is a search term for the relay you will probably want to use (no moving parts)