International Journal of Electronics Communication and Computer Technology (IJECCT)

Volume 3 Issue 2 (March 2013)

Home Automation and Security System Using

Android ADK
Deepali Javale

Mohd. Mohsin

Shreerang Nandanwar

Mayur Shingate

Assistant Professor
Dept. of Computer Engg
MAEER's MITCOE
Pune, India

Student
Dept. of Computer Engg
MAEER's MITCOE
Pune, India

Student
Dept. of Computer Engg
MAEER's MITCOE
Pune, India

Student
Dept. of Computer Engg
MAEER's MITCOE
Pune, India

Abstract Today we are living in 21st century where

automation is playing important role in human life. Home
automation allows us to control household appliances like
light, door, fan, AC etc. It also provides home security and
emergency system to be activated. Home automation not
only refers to reduce human efforts but also energy
efficiency and time saving. The main objective of home
automation and security is to help handicapped and old
aged people which will enable them to control home
appliances and alert them in critical situations.
This paper put forwards the design of home automation
and security system using Android ADK. The design is
based on a standalone embedded system board Android
ADK(Accessory Development Kit) at home. Home
appliances are connected to the ADK and communication
is established between the ADK and Android mobile
device or tablet. The home appliances are connected to the
input/output ports of the embedded system board and
their status is passed to the ADK. We would develop an
authentication to the system for authorized person to
access home appliances. The device with low cost and
scalable to less modification to the core is much important.
It presents the design and implementation of automation
system that can monitor and control home appliances via
android phone or tablet.
Keywords-Home Automation and Security; Arduino;
Embedded Systems; Android ADK; Android phone; Tablet
I.

INTRODUCTION

Home automation is automation of the home, housework or

household activity. Home automation may include centralized
control of lighting, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air
conditioning), appliances, and other systems, to provide
improved convenience, comfort, energy efficiency and
security. The concept of home automation has been around for
a long time and products have been on the market for decades,
though no one solution has broken through to the mainstream
yet. Home automation for the elderly and disabled can provide
increased quality of life for persons who might otherwise
require caregivers or institutional care. It can also provide a
remote interface to home appliances or the automation system

itself, via telephone line, wireless transmission or the internet,

to provide control and monitoring via a smart phone or web
browser. This paper will describe the approach which we are
implementing to control various home appliances with Android
smart phone.
II.

LITERATURE SURVEY

As per our survey currently there exists no system at cheaper

rates. Various systems are hard to install, difficult to use and
maintain. Current systems are generally proprietary and closed,
not very customizable by the end user.
N. Sriskanthan [1] explained the model for home
automation using bluetooth via PC. But unfortunately the
system lacks to support mobile technology.
Muhammad Izhar Ramli [2] designed a prototype electrical
device control system using Web. They also set the server with
auto restart if the server condition is currently down.
Hasan [5] has developed a telephone and PIC remote
controlled device for controlling the devices pin check
algorithm has been introduced where it was with cable network
but not wireless communication.
Pradeep G [4] proposed home automation system by using
bluetooth which saves lot of power and time using mechanism
to save the preloaded list by not making it to setup connection
all the time when required.
Al-Ali and Al-Rousan [3] presented a design and
implementation of a Java-based automation system through
World Wide Web. It had a standalone embedded system board
integrated into a PC-based server at home.
Amul Jadhav [6] developed an application in a universal
XML format which can be easily ported to any other mobile
devices rather than targeting a single platform.

Figure 1.Home automation system block diagram by R. Piyare[8]

ISSN:2249-7838

IJECCT | www.ijecct.org

382

International Journal of Electronics Communication and Computer Technology (IJECCT)

Volume 3 Issue 2 (March 2013)
status of a particular device. If user wishes, he can enable or
disable intended device.
The system is smart enough to activate alarm when smoke
is detected or it is programmed to auto on/off lights during late
night hours. If room temperature goes very high or low it can
automatically adjust fan/AC as per the temperature. It has voice
navigation which is specifically beneficial to blind people.

Figure 2.Cell Phone GUI for controlling the home appliances by R Piyare[8]

R.Piyare [8] have introduced design and implementation of

a low cost, flexible and wireless solution to the home
automation.

C. Android ADK
ADK stands for Accessory Development Kit. Android
accessory is a physical accessory that can be attached to your
Android device. [12] These particular devices perform specific
actions. For USB accessories to be supported on a particular
device, there must be support for the accessory-mode, a special
means of connecting over the USB port. This allows data
transfer between devices and external peripherals.

Jitendra R. [7] showed that with the ZigBee network how to

eliminate the complication of wiring in case of wired
automation. There is also considerable amount of power saving
possible, operating range is more than Bluetooth.
Google and Microsoft have recently entered the home
automation domain. At 2011 I/O conference, [9] Google
announced Android@Home.
for
Android devices to communicate with external hardware. The
Android Open Accessory Standard and the Accessory
Development Kit (ADK) is the key for communicating with
hardware and building external accessories for Android
devices. Android powers hundreds of millions of mobile
devices in more than 190 countries around the world. [10] It's
the largest installed base of any mobile platform and growing
fast every day another million users.

Figure 3 Arduino Mega ADK

Microsoft is similarly working on a project called

HomeOS, [11] an operating system for the home.
III.

IMPLEMENTATION

A. Android
For this home automation and security system we are
targeting Android platform since it has huge market and open
source. Android is a software stack for mobile devices that
includes an operating system, middleware and key
applications. The Android OS is based on Linux. Android
Applications are made in a Java-like language running on a
. The
Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin
developing applications on the Android platform using the Java
programming language. Accessory mode is a feature of
Android OS since version 2.3.4 Gingerbread and 3.1
Honeycomb and above.
B. Software Design
As discussed earlier we are developing Android
application. The application consists of main function like
Light controlling, Door controlling, Smoke detection and
Temperature sensing. When the application starts user is first
authenticated, if user is authorized he will be navigated to main
screen. The main screen has a list of all functions among which
user can select any one function which he want to control.
After selecting a function he would be able to see a current

Figure 4 Block Diagram of Home Automation and Security System using Android
ADK

The Android Open Accessory Development Kit (ADK) is a

reference implementation of an Android Open Accessory,
based on the Arduino [15] open source electronics prototyping
platform. The accessory's hardware design files are provided as
part of the kit to help hardware builders get started building
their own accessories.
The Arduino ADK [15] is a microcontroller board based on
the ATmega2560. It has a USB host interface to connect with
Android based phones, based on the MAX3421e IC. The main
hardware and software components of the ADK include
The host chip allows any USB

ISSN:2249-7838

IJECCT | www.ijecct.org

383

International Journal of Electronics Communication and Computer Technology (IJECCT)

Volume 3 Issue 2 (March 2013)
device to connect to the Arduino which we will later
implement as an Android USB accessory. The ADK board
provides input and output pins that you can implement through
the use of attachments called "shields." With an Android
de
actuators you require to create your own accessories. This may
include a LED outputs, and temperature and light sensors.
D. Android Open Accessory Protocol
Android Open Accessory [13] support allows external USB
hardware (an Android USB accessory) to interact with an
Android-powered device in a special accessory mode. When an
Android-powered device is in accessory mode, the connected
accessory acts as the USB host (powers the bus and enumerates
devices) and the Android-powered device acts in the USB
accessory role. Android Open Accessory Protocol, [14] allows
to detect Android-powered devices that support accessory
mode. Accessory mode is ultimately dependent on the device's
hardware and not all devices support accessory mode.
Android Open Accessory support is included in Android
3.1 (API Level 12) and higher, and supported through an AddOn Library in Android 2.3.4 (API Level 10) and higher.
Android 4.1 and higher has support for audio output over a
USB connection or Bluetooth An Android USB accessory must
adhere to Android Accessory Protocol, which defines how an
accessory detects and sets up communication with an Androidpowered device. [14] In general, an accessory should carry out
the following steps:
1. Wait for and detect connected devices
2. Determine the device's accessory mode support
3. Attempt to start the device in accessory mode if needed
4. Establish communication with the device if it supports the
Android accessory protocol.
The Android Open Accessory Protocol 2.0 [16] adds two new
features: audio output (from the Android device to the
accessory) and support for the accessory acting as one or more
Human Interface Devices (HID) to the Android device.
IV. BLOCK DIAGRAM
Android Device - It is the device through which application
interacts with sensors.
USB Connector - It is the hardware port in the kit through
which the USB device is attached to the embedded kit.
Android Accessory Development Kit(ADK) - ADK allows
Android Phone to act as USB De
Arduinocommunication between Android Powered Devices (like
phone, tablet) and external Hardware like industrial controls.
Embedded Device - It consists of individual embedded kits
along with respective sensors.
V.

APPLICATIONS

Following are the applications of Home Automation and

Security System
Medical alert / teleassistance.
Precise and safe blind control.
Detection of fire, gas leaks and water leaks.

ISSN:2249-7838

Smoke detector can detect a fire or smoke condition,

causing all lights in the house to blink to alert any person of
the house to the possible emergency.
The system can call the home owner on their mobile phone
to alert them, or call the fire department or alarm
monitoring company.
In terms of lighting control, it is possible to save energy
when hours of wasted energy in both residential and
commercial applications by auto on/off light at night time
in all major city office buildings, say after 10pm.
Control and integration of security systems and also the
potential for central locking of all perimeter doors and
windows.
Security cameras can be controlled, allowing the user to
observe activity around a house or business right from a
Monitor or touch panel.
Security systems can include motion sensors that will detect
any kind of unauthorized movement and notify the user
through the security system or via cell phone.
An intercom system allows communication via a
microphone and loud speaker between multiple rooms.
VI.

FUTURE WORK

Looking at the current situation we can build cross platform

system that can be deployed on various platforms like iOS,
Windows. Limitation to control only several devices can be
removed by extending automation of all other home
appliances. Security cameras can be controlled, allowing the
user to observe activity around a house or business. Security
systems can include motion sensors that will detect any kind
of unauthorized movement and notify the user. Scope of this
project can be expanded to many areas by not restricting to
only home. It will be flexible to support various wired as well
as wireless technologies like Bluetooth, Zigbee, Wi-Fi, World
Wide Web.
VII.

CONCLUSION

This is an ongoing project. Our prime objective is to assist

handicapped/old aged people. This paper gives basic idea of
how to control various home appliances and provide a security
using Android phone/tab. This project is based on Android and
Arduino platform both of which are FOSS(Free Open Source
Software). So the overall implementation cost is very cheap
and it is affordable by a common person. Looking at the
current scenario we have chosen Android platform so that most
of the people can get benefit.
The design consists of Android phone with home automation
application, Arduino Mega ADK. User can interact with the
android phone and send control signal to the Arduino ADK
which in turn will control other embedded devices/sensors.
We have discussed a simple prototype in this paper but in
future it can be expanded to many other areas.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We acknowledge the efforts and hard work by the experts
who have contributed towards development of the different
home automation systems. We also acknowledge the efforts of
the reviewers of the journal for the suggestions and
modifications to improve the quality of the paper and to help
prepare the camera-ready copy of our paper.

IJECCT | www.ijecct.org

384

International Journal of Electronics Communication and Computer Technology (IJECCT)

Volume 3 Issue 2 (March 2013)
REFERENCES
[1]

[2]

Journal of Microprocessors and Microsystems, Vol. 26,

pp.281-289, 2002.
Muhammad Izhar Ramli, Mohd Helmy Abd Wahab, Nabihah,

[3]

International Conference on Science and

Technology: Application in Industry and Education (2006)
Al-Ali, Member, IEEE & M. AL-Based Home
Vol. 50, No. 2, MAY 2004

[4]

[5]

[6]

-Hoc Low
Powered 802.15.1 Protocol Based Automation System for Residence
Andhra Pradesh, India IJCST Vo l. 2, SP 1, December 2011
E. Yavuz, B.
International
Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, Vol. 7, No. 5, May
2007.
sal

ISSN:2249-7838

[7]

Pune, India Network and Complex Systems ISSN 2224-610X (Paper)

ISSN 2225-0603 (Online) Vol 2, No.2, 2012
Rana, Jitendra Rajendra and Pawar, Sunil N., Zigbee Based Home
Automation
(April
10,
2010).
Available
at
SSRN:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1587245
or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1587245

[8]

[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]

ternational Symposium on Consumer

Electronics
http://googleblog.blogspot.in/2011/05/android-momentum-mobile-andmore-at.html
http://developer.android.com/about/index.html
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/
http://source.android.com/tech/accessories/index.html
http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/usb/accessory.ht
ml#manifest
http://source.android.com/tech/accessories/aoap/aoa.html
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardADK
http://source.android.com/tech/accessories/aoap/aoa2.html.

IJECCT | www.ijecct.org

385