I have a long term project, for learning purposes, which is creating a virtual assistent, such as Siri or Google Now, but to control my home automation. I'll have an arduino controling some hardware (such lamps, sensors, etc.), and the assistent I'll write in Python. Until this step, I have the knowledge to do this. But thinking forward, when this is functional, would be great if I could add the feature to control remotely by mobile app and/or webpage, and not just by my desktop.
The problem is I don't know which knowledge I need have to do this.
I want to have a web page, or a mobile app that show me this webpage, where I can program buttons to turn on/off stuff, check the sensors data, etc. I should like to use PHP, cause as I said, this is for learning purposes. I supose that I'll need set a server in my home, and then access him through this app/page. So, which programming skills I need to accomplish this (considering that arduino runs in C and the assistent will be scripted in Python)?
Thanks.