What is 1-wire good for?
What is 1-wire good for?- Monitoring
1-wire is great to low-cost monitoring of environmental conditions (temperature, light levels, humidity, moisture,...). There are 3rd party devices that can measure more elaborate conditions (Thermocouples for extreme temperatures, ultraviolet, wind-speed, counters. Typical uses include computer case and server room monitoring, weather stations, soil conditions, aquarium and vehicle monitoring.
- Control
There are numerous 1-wire chips that have on-off switches (either 1,2,or 8 switches per chip). High current circuits can be built using relays. There is also 3rd party devices that have pulse-width modulation (PWM) counters and other controls, also under 1-wire supervision.
- Instrumentation
The battery monitoring chips have (besides temperature) current and voltage sensors in different ranges. These have been used the design thermocouples. - Limitations
In fact, the biggest constraint is usually speed. Fast process control and momentary contacts are difficult. Instead, 1-wire might be a good supervisory/monitoring/alarm system on top of process control.
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