Internet of things
The Internet of things (IoT) is the inter-networking of physical devices, vehicles (also referred to as ”connected devices” and ”smart devices”), buildings, and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.[1] IoT And Smart Home allows objects to be controlled and gather information remotely across the already established network.
Abstract
Internet of Things (IoT) is an emerging technology that is making our world smarter. The idea of connected world cannot be imagined without IoT. An IoT based Smart Home is one such example. In IoT enabled Smart Home environment various things such as lighting, home appliances, computers, security camera etc. all are connected to the Internet and allowing user to monitor and control things regardless of time and location constraint. This paper describes IoT for building IoT enabled Smart Home. This paper discusses functions of Smart Home and its applications and introduces FLIP architecture with implementation of Smart Home services.
INTRODUCTION
A smart home also referred to as a connected home or eHome is an environment for living that has highly advanced automatic systems. A smart home appears “intelligent” because its daily activities are monitored by a computer. A smart home consists of many technologies via home networking for improving quality of living. A smart home is a place that has highly advanced automatic systems for controlling and monitoring lighting and temperature, home appliances, multi-media equipment, and security systems and many other functions. IoT plays an important role in building smart home.
Through IoT almost every object of our daily life in a home can be connected to the Internet. IoT allows monitoring and controlling all of these connected objects regardless of time and location.
MOTIVATION
A smart city in an environment and infrastructure which is highly depends upon Internet for communication and services. Thus IoT is a key factor for building smart cities. A smart home system, proposed in this paper, is a component of a smart city. The motivation behind this paper is to propose a smart home system that can be implemented in smart cities.
FUNCTIONS OF SMART HOME
A smart home system consists of applications built on top of IoT infrastructure. The smart home applications can have following main functions:
Alert
The smart home system is able to sense its environment and accordingly send alerts to the user on registered device or account. The alert
consists of information related to environmental data. This information may include level of different gases in the environment, temperature, humidity, light intensity etc. alert may be sent to user on regular basis at predefined time. Alert may be sent over email, as a text message, through tweets or through any other social media.
Monitor
This is the most important function of smart home. A smart home is capable of monitoring its surrounding with the help of various sensors and camera feed. Monitoring is an important function as it keep track to every activity in a smart home which is the primary need on basis of which any further action can be taken or decision can be made. For example monitoring room temperature and sending alert to user to switch on airconditioner if temperature is above threshold.
Control
This function of smart home allows user to control different activities. The activities may include switching on/off lights, air-conditioner, and appliances, lock/unlock doors, open/close windows and doors and many more. User can control things from same place or from remote location. This function even allows user to automate activity such as automatically switch on/off air-conditioner when room temperature high/low.
Intelligence
Intelligence or Home Intelligence (HI) is the most significant function of smart home and refers to intelligent behavior of the smart-home environment. This function is related to automatically making decision on occurrence of various events. HI depends upon the Artificial Intelligence (AI) mechanism built in the smart home environment. HI does not only give brain to smart home but it is also very important for security point of view in a home.
HI creates an integrated environment in the smart home in which the AI mechanism can identify and suitably react according to changing conditions and events. By identifying abnormal or unexpected events HI can alert user and provide an immediate automatic response if desired. Some scenarios for illustration are automatically prepare coffee as soon as user arrives, send alert to user whenever suspected activity is detected at door or inside home, automatically order stuff whenever there is a shortage in refrigerator, sending notification to electrician/plumber whenever maintenance is needed etc.
SMART HOME APPLICATIONS
Although the application area of a smart home is only limited by human imagination, this paper illustrates some of them which are described below:
Smart Lighting
Smart lighting is used for energy saving which can be achieved by adapting lighting to the ambient conditions and by switching on/off or dimming of lights according to user needs thus reducing the unnecessary use of energy. Saving energy also helps in reducing cost. The smart lighting can be implemented with Solid State lighting (LEDs) or IP-enabled lights (Internet or wireless controlled). The smart lighting works by sensing the occupancy, temperature/humidity and LUX level in the environment.
Smart Appliances
Smart appliances are used for gathering status information of appliances and to easily control appliances from within the room or remotely. It is also used for scheduling tasks at predefined time and for runtime integration between appliances. Smart appliances save energy and time.
Intrusion Detection
Intrusion detection is used for alerting user through email and text message. The intrusion detection application can also send detailed report with images or audio/video clip to the user. The main goal of this application is to monitor suspected activity in smart home and alert user and take necessary actions for security purpose.
Smoke/Gas Detection
This application is used for sensing the smart home environment for healthy living and can also be used for security. This application is used for optical detection, ionization, and air sampling technique. It is capable of raising alert to near by fire station in case of fire and smoke and to user via email/SMS informing them about health risks. Discussed above are few, but not the least, applications of a smart home environment which are useful to improve safety and quality of living.
CONCLUSION
With the rapid development of Internet and communication technologies today’s homes also have strong computation and communication abilities. An IoT based smart home is emerging as an important part of the smart and intelligent cities which are being proposed and developed around the world. The purpose of a smart home is to improve living standard, security and safety as well as save energy and resources. The smart home plays an important role in development of society.
Iot and smart home
The goal of this project is to create a IoT Smart House that can monitor specific criteria, as well as control specific devices. Data to be monitored are: temperature, humidity, movement, water, and power. An outlet, camera, and microphone can be controlled by the user from any mobile device. The user will be notified in any change in the monitored data, if it changes beyond their given range. The device must also work while power is out in the house; which means a battery back-up and Internet hot spot must be included as well.
