What’s a good solution for cheap wireless push buttons I could hook up to, say, a Raspberry Pi to control some lamps (Phillips Hue, Belkin WeMo, whatever). I was thinking about maybe using a wireless doorbell button/receiver. I’d like at least ~3 different “channels”. Ideally I could have a couple different commands (short press, long press, double tap).
It depends what you mean by “cheap” but you could do it for about ~£50 with a cheap arduino pro (~£10) and an pair of XBee (~£25 each) and a push button.
You could lower the cost by using an lower frequency RF alternative to the XBee (XRF maybe?) and an arduino clone for ~£5.
Then you could have all sorts of key combinations detected by the Arduino. You hook up the second XBee to the raspberry Pi via UART and read the data with Python, or another language of your preference.
control lamps - like AC Mains powered?
Cheapest: X10 stuff
X10 TW523
http://www.x10.com/automation/tw523_s.html
http://www.smarthome.com/1140/X10-Activ … 11A/p.aspx
Look for the CM11 or its successor new, or on eBay. The latest are USB but getting an OS driver is a pain.
and US $15 appliance or lamp modules throughout the home.