Monitor a status LED or light

[ScottRennie]

I have just installed a heating management system with a boiler control relay unit which has an on/off LED when asking for heat (rads). The boiler itself also has a light which goes on when the boiler is heating water or heat for the rads.

Does anyone have a method to monitor the status of the LED? - I want to know when the system is asking for heat. My initial thoughts are using a LDR to trigger a z-wave switch or if it's possible to parallel off an opto-coupler across the LED.

Anyone got ideas?

Cheers
Scott

[mrhappy]

Personally I'd steer clear of going into the actual circuit, use an ldr or phototransistor. You can use a photon core device for cheaper than a zwave switch and not have to worry about batteries.

[rmasonjr]

I use a photocell to monitor the led on a driveway sensor. It's wired to an arduino with a relay board. When the led is on, the relay closes and my alarm panel notifies Homeseer.

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[ScottRennie]

Personally I'd steer clear of going into the actual circuit, use an ldr or phototransistor. You can use a photon core device for cheaper than a zwave switch and not have to worry about batteries.

That's what I was thinking - what's a Photon core device? Any links?

Scott

[mrhappy]

http://cpc.farnell.com/1/3/wifi-dev-board-spark-core

I posted some stuff about it here http://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=175638

Was just a suggestion, plenty of other solutions out there...I was just thinking if you did have to go the LDR route then you are going to need an additional circuit to get it into a Z-Wave contact closure type sensor.

[ScottRennie]

http://cpc.farnell.com/1/3/wifi-dev-board-spark-core

I posted some stuff about it here http://forums.homeseer.com/showthread.php?t=175638

Was just a suggestion, plenty of other solutions out there...I was just thinking if you did have to go the LDR route then you are going to need an additional circuit to get it into a Z-Wave contact closure type sensor.

That's brilliant - Thank you. My original plan was to hook up a LDR circuit with an op amp voltage comparator to trigger an external contact on a z-wave window sensor. I'll have a look at this option as it looks a lot more interesting than a simple Vero board job.... Just need to database the ons and offs but that's got a bunch of fairly simple options.

The IFTTT looks like a great way to do both - I'll have a butchers tomorrow

Thanks again

Scott

[ScottRennie]

Personally I'd steer clear of going into the actual circuit, use an ldr or phototransistor. You can use a photon core device for cheaper than a zwave switch and not have to worry about batteries.

Cheers MrHappy. I got a Photon & now have this working. It was a good call - thank you

Scott

[mrhappy]

Cheers MrHappy. I got a Photon & now have this working. It was a good call - thank you

Scott

Good to see, still not found a great use for mine although I have a gesture sensor coming in the post I might use and combine with it...a nice hands free dimmer of some description.