ChipKit Uno32 with the WIZnet WIZ550io and some other ramblings

Yea, I finally have basic network code working with the ChipKit Uno32 and the WIZnet WIZ550io board. Yes I can ping and connect to its port 80 just fine. I had various problems with porting the code from the Arduino to the MPIDE environment but I've finally done it. I'm not exactly sure how fast the WIZ550io board is being clock at, I'll need to figure that out. Later I'll make some effort to move it from the SPI to the DSPI library but for now it's working. I'll try some of the more complex examples later. I'd like to use this setup to monitor the temperature and humidity in various parts of the house. My wife has been asking for this to replace the failing display she has on the table next to her. In addition I'd like to add support for MQTT. That way multiple HA systems can subscribe to the information. And, yes, I do have more than 1 HA system running. The Uno32 should have plenty of flash and RAM to handle the job. I'll post the initial code and updates to my Linux HA git account later this week.

I received the initial WIZ550io board from a WIZnet Circuit Cellar contest where I was going to build some HA nodes. While I probably wouldn't have won I'm still going to build the nodes. I had everything planned out except for my employer's work load. I managed to get a last minute work to build automation framework for our testing. I'm actually quite proud of that code. I'm now spending some time to document my framework and I have a number of ideas for improvements and tools to help with the automation. Anyways, back to Circuit Cellar; I might try to write an article for Circuit Cellar once I get this working (and I finish my presenations for TCF and VCF). I'm happy to see that Steve Ciarcia has bought Circuit Cellar. I didn't like the way Elector went out of it's way to hide any article of interest behind an Elector pay wall.

Back on the subject of HA, I've been reading a lot of articles on HA and IoT. I really need to spend some time adding it to my site. There are lots of projects people are undertaking. One of them is OpenHAB and it seems the Java folks have taken some interest in it. I read an interesting article on Java (from Java Magazine) on IoT and HA. The one asumption I found difficult to understand was that the HA node/device had enough resources to deal with the java VM. I don't see that happening with things like the Arduino. But is my assumption or theirs unrealistic? With small devices such as the Arduino we have to put up with a lack of security. The Uno32 has more resources it may be inadequate also. Perhaps we shouldn't settle for small devices with such short comings. Security isn't something you can easily bolt on a later date but we seem to be pushing forward building on that very premise.