Essay Sample on IoT Based Smart Home Design

Introduction

According to Alaa, Zaidan, Zaidan, Talal, & Kiah (2017, p. 48-49), a home is smart when appliances and "things" are connected so that one can have more time for him/herself and their family, save resources, have more security, optimize some day-to-day tasks, and other benefits. The term defines the incorporation of electronic systems to our homes and buildings so that they can efficiently and safely manage the elements that make up a home remotely. Bing, Fu, Zhuo, & Yanlei (2011) state smart home is also a home with the integration of electronic devices connected to a network, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth for example. In a smart home, each object acquires a role in the service of the user, as it becomes a very important point of information to the user. It is a set of systems capable of automating a home, providing energy management, security, welfare and communication services, which can be integrated by means of internal and external communication networks, wired or wireless, and whose control enjoys certain ubiquity, from inside and outside the home. According to Gupta & Chhabra (2016, p. 6), it could be defined as the integration of technology in the intelligent design of an enclosed space. This integrated system in the home will be the brain and will act according to multiple protocols established by the user, making each smart home different and tailored. All these objects are all united in a network, thus becoming a smart home. Each connected object, through the integration of technology, will lend a clear and concrete functionality to the user, and all these objects that exist in the network will communicate in the same language with the rest of the objects that make up the smart home. Jie, Pei, Jun, Yun, & Wei (2013, p. 1790) believe that a smart home is no longer a concept relegated to the field of science fiction. The proliferation of wireless connections, advances in nanotechnology and the rise of the "Internet of Things" has allowed all types of household elements can be automated or controlled to a greater degree of depth by its users.

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Wang, Zhang, Zhang, Zhang, and Li (2013) argue that with an integrated system, one can control a lot of things, such as lighting, temperature, turning on appliances, setting an alarm for waking up, or making coffee for when one is coming home. There are numerous possibilities of integration with systems and devices available in the market and many others are in development. According to Allhoff & Henschke (2018, p. 59), all of this is related to the Internet of Things movement (IoT), which aims to connect daily items with the internet, to collect information in real time and to help people's lives. Mocrii, Chen, and Musilek (2018) state that the Internet of Things is a paradigm that has been gaining ground in the modern scenario of wireless telecommunications. The idea is to be able to connect a variety of objects, such as sensors, RFID tags, smartphones, computers, and even objects of common use, to each other. These objects generate a data stream and the connection allows them to transmit this data to other objects in the middle, forming an Internet of things. Gubbi, Buyya, Marusic, & Palaniswami (2013, p. 1649) concur with Mocrii et al. (2018) by stating that IoT in homes will make it possible for a person, without there being at home, to act on their house, and on any element of it, and see in real time the object or action to be developed on their home. Gaikwad, Gabhane, & Golait (2015, p. 331) add that by using emerging technologies such as IoT, chatbot, voice commands, and even gestures, in addition to making this possible with data collection and cloud storage, it is possible to determine patterns and behaviors of events and make decisions in advance. According to research conducted by McKinsey, an American consulting firm, in the United States, the smart home is already a reality. By 2015 there were 17 million homes connected and should reach 500 million by 2020 (Allhoff & Henschke, 2018). The expectation, according to the study, is that there is an annual growth of 31% in this segment.

According to Hui, Sherratt, & Sanchez (2017, p. 360), the current future is for all these elements to acquire artificial intelligence, and communicate with each other as if they were people to provide the best of all experiences to the user. The list of features of the smart home is enormous. By remote control or even by cell phone, it is possible to control home appliances, air conditioners, coffee makers, microwaves, TVs, radios, washing machines, Smartphones, in addition to turning on and off lights from all rooms, triggering the security system and open and close doors. In this context comes the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), whose purpose is to interconnect the electronic equipment that we use in the day to day to the internet or databases with the use of sensor networks, to process this information and return on benefits to the user.

Pivare & Lee (2013) state that residential automation generates many benefits for users. The ease of control of the equipment is one of the most noticeable benefits since everything can be accessed and programmed via the application. Lighting, audio, curtains, temperature, electronics, security system are some of the most common examples. But in addition, there is the optimization of time and the economy. Liu (2013, p. 75) agrees with Jie et al. (2013) by stating that automated solutions become more sustainable and contribute to energy savings and influence more research and development of lower cost smart technologies combined with sustainability. An example is the Next Cam IQ Indoor security camera. This is a high definition system that allows one to check live what is going on in their home, receive alerts from unknown people - and schedule it to recognize one's pet, avoiding fake alerts- and talk to anyone who is at home (Kodali, Jain, Bose, & Boppana, 2016). It is an intelligent system is able to differentiate people with facial recognition, animals and different movements. Another example is the cleaning robot vacuum cleaner. The LG robotic vacuum cleaner features a camera that maps the floor of the house, comprising every square inch one needs to sweep to keep everything clean. It also has functionality that can be wiped remotely from an application.

According to Li & Yu (2011), in this communication between each user and the smart home, the objects will interpret actions to be carried out, each according to the control guidelines established by the user, through the use of programming of a specific protocol based on usability, direct activation by the verbal user, as by touch drive, on a single management platform in tablet, smartphone, etc. In a tablet, one can identify, for example, the living room of the house, because of a camera or pre-configuration of a software, in which one can operate bidirectionally, directly by pressing on any necessary function in the tablet or control point, or Inverse, that the room interprets by habits of use, as each object must be configured by repetitions of use, etc. Al-Fuqaha, Guizani, Mohammadi, Aledhari, & Ayyash (2015, p. 2350) add that i the same way, it is now possible to control devices, or objects, through voice commands. For example, if a user says to the micro of his smartwatch as for example the Galaxy Gear 'leaving home', any object can be configured before this command such as the lights and the selected appliances will be turned off or programmed in the way that we want before this state. If the user says 'good night' to the control of his Smart TV, the TV will turn off and the lights will gradually reduce their intensity. Consumers can also use voice chat applications from their phones, to communicate with the devices, as if it were one more contact. A smart house will also provide information to the user in terms of defining the useful life of each element and provide needs related to the maintenance of certain objects in order to extend the useful life of them, and make more efficient the services they provide these objects.

Chong, Zhihao, & Yifeng (2011) believe that through IoT, it will be possible for the smart home to interact with other objects or elements of the environment since all the objects will have technology incorporated. Gupta & Chhabra (2016) add that besides having the experience of the user, smart houses, will be nourished by the millions of experiences of users of other users or smart homes, converting all this information encoded in a huge big data, which will make possible that in the very near future, the user through voice is the communication interface with an operating system integrated in the house, and is the one that will manage the necessary actions, this operating system is the one that suggests possibilities according to the information one acquires from existing big data, making at this point the smart home 100%.

According to Chong, Zhihao, & Yifeng (2011), in an innovative way and taking into account the market prospects, as well as meeting the requirement of practicality, the system is controlled by means of a mobile device (smartphone) that has access to all the functionalities of the residential automation system through simple touches on screen, it is only connected to the internal network of the house. Requests are sent by the user through an application developed specifically for the project. It has a personalized and intuitive graphical interface, subdivided through modules represented by colors. Soliman, Abiodun, Hamouda, Zhou, & Lung (2013, p. 317) adds that aiming simplicity of implementation, convenience and low cost for the end user, the system seeks to simplify the automation of a series of residential processes, together with the low investment cost applying the IoT concept. The system has, among others, the following functionalities: to interconnect the whole system of lighting of a residence so that it can be controlled, that goes from a simple on or off a lamp remotely to the dimerization of the lights of certain environments; monitoring the temperature of one of the rooms of the house; and implementation of alarm system that communicates with the user's smartphone, aiming at residential security. All the system modules aim at the ease and dynamism in accessing certain functionalities for disabled users or not. It should be noted that the design of the control and automation system through a set of tools and devices has these functionalities, but it is known that it can be expanded to countless processes or "things" to be controlled through other sensors and actuators.

According to Stanford-Clark & Truong (2013), among the IoT components needed include the OSC protocol, Wi-Fi, and Arduino Uno. Open Sound Control (OSC) is a communication protocol between computers, sound synthesizers and other multimedia devices that is optimized for modern networking technology. Wi-Fi is a set of specifications for local wireless networks (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11 standard. This technology was used to enable wireless communication and connection between computers and other compatible devices on the network, such as notebooks, tablets, and smartphones, which are geographically close. In smart homes, it is the means of communication that allows the wireless connection and sending of messages between the developed application and the central control, by not using cables will allow the user to control the functionalities of the system of any point within the limits of reach of the transmission of radiofrequency (Soliman et al. 2013). The flexibility of Wi-Fi is so great that it became viable to implement networks that make use of this technology in the most varied places, mainly because the advantages mentioned in the previou...