Introduction

SO what is this blog even about, who am I, what am I doing here etc.

Look no further, all these questions will be answered here.

1. Who am I?

I'm Aabhas Sharma, a software engineer with IXL Learning in the SF bay area. Recently moved here(August 2012 to be precise) and just like every other software engineer, when I'm not working I wanna try out other geeky stuff.

I graduated from Purdue University with Honors, Computer Engineering.

Like every other software engineer, I have an ordinary life. I take the train and cycle to work every morning, I eat the same food as you, wear the same clothes as you, but I'm lazy. 

Well, more than lazy, I'm forgetful about the little things.

For example, I started growing a vegetable garden (very California of me) but I forget to water it..

Or I leave my blinds open and come home to a HOT apartment

Or I leave my window open and come home to a freezing apartment

Or I leave my door unlocked.

And so on. This brings me to the next question

2. What am I doing?

This is going to be a long arduous journey to automating my whole apartment.

The goals of this experiment are:
a. To see how far I can take home automation without pissing off my landlords as I don't own the apartment, I merely rent it.

b. Monitor my apartment remotely through a home server, and automate everything that can be automated.

c. Make it as cheap as possible. I just started work, a generous starting salary still barely makes ends meet, hence I hope to achieve everything on a budget

d. Don't set fire to my house, reduce my electric usage on a whole, hence I will be constantly monitoring my electric and gas usage (thanks to PG&E's graphs)

e. See if my vegetable garden survives, maybe some day I can be a self sufficient well oiled machine

f. Do all this in limited time, limited being me limited to working on this project only on the weekends, as I work alllllll day

3. Why am I doing this?

I don't want to make money off this. I just want to help other hopeful home automaters follow my journey, and not make the same mistakes as me. Make their lives easier, hopefully.

Now this will be presuming you have some programming experience, but I will attach my source files as well as my circuit diagrams to make your lives easier.

I will be attaching cost sheets, graphs, photos, videos and everything. But you'll have to be patient, as I will be working off a limited time and monetary budget.

Tune in this weekend for more updates!