Free Article of the Week! Radio Controlled Multi-Switch

A proportional radio control is ideal for controlling the speed and direction of model cars, planes or boats. Unfortunately, there are often very few facilities for switches on such controllers. With the help of this circuit you can control five switches using just a single channel. The switching is effected by relays at the receiver side.

Access to and control of IoT device data can happen via various methods, the best known of which is the asynchronous “big data” IoT approach. This article is about the lesser known synchronous “realtime” operation.

Browsing Elektor Labs from old to new I came across an interesting project from 2013 to transform a remote controlled cable car into a Wi-Fi controlled car. At the time Wi-Fi modules (and martphones) were still new, expensive and a bit complicated to use, but today, thanks to the ESP8266 adding Wi-Fi to any device has become cheap and easy. So, why don’t you let this project inspire you? Find an old (or new) cable car and turn it into a cheap, Wi-Fi-controlled car.

While looking for interesting items for our newsletter, I came across a smart remote control on Kickstarter that has already garnered over half a million dollars in pledges for the Sevenhugs Smart Remote campaign. Could that be the ultimate replacement for all those remote controls presently in my home?

See the battery charge of your model plane while it is in the air. Two high-power LEDs indicate the charge by blinking trice when the battery is full, twice when it is half full and once when it’s empty and it is time to land.

A smart little round box dubbed Knocki makes any surface sensitive to tapping or knocking. The Kickstarter campaign for Knocki has already pulled in over $700,000 in pledges, so it looks like a lot of people are interested in this capability.

The Smart Video Car is not (only) a toy, it is a complete learning kit based on the wildly popular Raspberry Pi platform.  This great kit comes with an extensive and complete manual, all the necessary code (with explanation) as well as thorough schematic diagrams. 

Some of my young friends claimed that the 4 channel servo with XBEE though very sophisticated & robust but a bit costlier therefore, they asked for a cheaper solution. Well I tried the same with 433 MHz radios and here comes the result – it's little slow but works precisely.

433 MHz radios are great for making remote control toys and RC switches which are based on throwing some switches on and off here and there and running a couple of motors. But for greater degree of controls say running a few servos for controlling the rudder, elevator, aileron for direction and the brushless motor for propeller action at the same time feedback from each of these action , the 433 mhz radio control comes to a grinding halt.

433 MHz radios are great for making remote control toys and RC switches which are based on throwing some switches on and off here and there and running a couple of motors. But for greater degree of freedom, say running a few servos for controlling the rudder, elevator, aileron for direction and the brushless motor for propeller action at the same time feedback from each of these action , the 433 MHz radio control comes to a grinding halt.