Device Control Protocol using Mobile Phone

Jong-hyuk Roh and Seunghun Jin

ETRI (Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), Korea
[email protected]

Abstract The capabilities of smart phone is raising the interest

of the smart home and home network technologies. These has
used smart phone as a remote controller. However, the
technologies of each vendor are different, connections between
the products of other companies are difficult. We suggest the
protocol that can control multiple devices with a single
application in the smart phone.

After the connection between the mobile phone and the

device, the device sends data of user interface to the mobile
phone. The app of mobile phone shows the user interface that
can controls the device. And according to the user interface
guideline, the user controls the device.

Keywords Device control, Mobile phone, Smart home services,

ubiquitous computing, Home network middleware

I. INTRODUCTION
With rapid development of smart phone make us to face in
front of the boundary of the world of ubiquitous computing
[1,2]. In addition to this, consumer electronics manufacturers
and telecommunication companies that feel the change of
society has released the connected device-related products and
smart home services. However, because protocols developed
by many vendors are different, there are compatibility issues
with the communication protocol. And to control many
devices, each application should be installed on the user
mobile terminal.
By using the proposed protocol in this paper, the user can
control various devices by users mobile phone via NFC and
Bluetooth. And the user interface data is downloaded from the
device to the mobile phone. Then it can make it possible to
control multiple devices with a single application.
In this paper, we describe the flow of the protocol and the
protocol message structure. Throughout the experiment we
evaluate the performance of the protocol. In addition, we show
that there is a speed improvement by using a method that does
not re-send the data of the user interface.
This paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we present
the device control protocol, and in section 3, describe the
experiment of the protocol and the simulation result. In
section 4, we describe the related works. We provide a
conclusion in section 5.
II. DEVICE CONTROL PROTOCOL
A. System
The system that uses the device control protocol consists of
a client and a server. The app installed in the client (mobile
phone) has the function of device control protocol. The server
is the one of electronic devices such as electric fan, TV, and
audio system. Using a mobile phone, the user controls the
electronic device.

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Figure 1. Device Control System

The client consists of the following modules.

Connect Manager: It is responsible for connecting the
device. Bluetooth is used for connection. It has 3
methods of Bluetooth pairing; basic pairing, NFC
pairing, and directly connecting.
Protocol Processor: It processes the device control
protocol.
User Interface: It decodes the data of user interface
received from the device. Then it shows the user
interface to the screen of mobile phone.
Service Device Manager: It manages the list of devices
that were connected. The Bluetooth address was saved
in order to easily connect the device next time.
Data Base: It manages the data of user interface
received from the device.
The device has the following modules.
Connect Manager: It processes in order to connect the
mobile phone.
Protocol Process: It processes the device control
protocol.
Access Control: In case that the access control is needed,
it requests the authentication to the mobile phone or
encrypts and decrypts the messages between them.
Service Manager: It loads the data of user interface that
is requested from the mobile phone and passes them to
the module of protocol process. Also, it processes the
service received from mobile phone.
Data Base: It manages the data of user interface that
will be sent to the client.

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 Authentication mode: If the device requests an

authentication mode, the authentication is done in the
phase 4. During authentication, the session key is created.
In the following messages, HMAC is included.
Encryption mode: If the device request an encryption
mode, the authentication is done and the session key is
created in the phase 4. The following messages is
encrypted by the session key.
Normal mode: No security is required, the client and
device process the phase 5 without the phase 4.
4. Authentication Process: The authentication process is done.
5. Response User Interface: The device sends the data of user
interface. The client shows a user interface in the screen of
the mobile phone.
6. Request Service: The user selects the service, which he
wish to use, in the user interface. The client sends the
message for selected service.
7. Response Service: After the requested service is processed,
the device sends a result message about success/failure of
the service.
When the user interface is needed to change, the device
should send the message of response user interface instead
of the message of response service.
8. Notify: The device sends the message about that the client
should sends the message of request user interface to the
device. Most of the flows are the response of the device to
the request of client except this message.
9. Request Close Connection: Either the client or the device
requests closing the connection.
10.Response Close Connection: It is the response
corresponding to the request for close connection.

Figure 2. System Architecture

B. Device Control Protocol

Figure 3 shows the flow of the device control protocol.

C. User Interface
The important feature of the device control protocol is to be
able to control more than one device using only on application
Figure 3. Protocol flow
in the mobile phone. The method that the user interface is
transmitted from the device to the application of the mobile
phone makes this possible.
1. Device Connection: The client and the device are
HTML is used as the format of the data of the user interface.
connected using Bluetooth. The pairing process is needed User interface module in client has the HTML parser and
for Bluetooth connection.
renderer.
Basic paring: It is a typical method of Bluetooth pairing.
The use of a standard web browser is that if the user enters
Device sets the discoverable mode and the client detects the URL in the address bar, the web browser connects the web
the discoverable device within range.
server and receives a response message containing the HTML
NFC pairing: NFC tag that has Bluetooth address of from the web server and then shows that on the screen of the
device is attached on the device. When the mobile phone browser. When the user clicks on the hyper link, the web
is touched to the NFC tag, the paring between them is browser sends a HTTP request message to the web server
built.
related this hyperlink. Web server sends the HTTP response
Directly connecting: The client has the list of devices message corresponding to the request.
that were connected. The user selects the device in the
Because it does not use the Internet, this system works in a
list then the client sends the request message to the different way with a common web browser. The user requests
selected device.
a service by touching the screen, the touched location has the
2. Request User Interface: After the connection is established, anchor tag of HTML. Generally, URL about the hyperlink is
the client sends a request message for the data of user included in the href attributed of the anchor tag, but in this
interface to the device.
system, the command string is included
3. Request Authentication: The device can request an
authentication process.
Ex) <a href=command3>OKButton.png</a>

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When the user touches the OK button, the message of

Request Service that has the command string, command3, is
sent to the devices.
D. Message
Message consists of a header and a body. In the header, the
information such as the type of message, session ID, and
number of data is included.
TABLE 1. HEADER FIELD

Field
type

III. EXPERIMENT

Size(Octets)
Information
1
Message type

msgID

Session ID. Identifier for the session

numOfData

Number of data in body

lenOfData

Length of body

require a trusted third party and it is resistant to dictionary

attacks. By exchanging data of four times between the client
and the server, the SRP processes the authentication and the
key exchange.
HMAC-SHA256 is used for the message authentication.
The key for HMAC-SHA256 is the session key made by the
SRP. Message authentication code is appended the end of the
body.
3DES is used for the encryption. A message that has no
body is not encrypted.

A. Environment and simulation

For the experiment, we use android smart phones that
support NFC and Bluetooth. The client application is installed
in a smart phone. For simulating devices such as an electronic
fan, an audio system and a signage system, we use android
smart phones and NFC tags. The following images show
simulated devices.

Table 2 shows the type of message.

TABLE 2. TYPE OF MESSAGE

Type
Request User Interface

Value
0x01

Response User Interface

0x02

Request Service

0x03

Response Service

0x04

Request Close Connection

0x05

Response Close Connection

0x06

Notify

0x07

Request Security Mode

0x08

Authentication Process

0x09

(a) Electronic fan

(b) Audio system

Body of the message depends on the message type. In case

of request user interface, request close connection, response
close connection and notify, there is no body. In the body of
the request service message, command field is included. In the
response user interface message, the data of the user interface
is included. In the body of the message response service,
status field, which contains the results of the service execution
is included.
E. Efficiency
The user interface data of the devices has not been changed
frequently. Therefore, the client should be saved and reused
user interface data of the device connected once. This method
improves sufficiently the speed of users connectivity.
F. Security
If the device requires security, it is possible to
authenticating the user or to encrypt a message. In protocol,
the device can select either authentication mode or encryption
mode.
We use the SRP (Secure Remote Protocol), RFC 2945[2],
as the authentication algorithm. The SRP is an augmented
password-authenticated key agreement protocol. It does not

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(c) Game in signage

Figure 4. Simulated Devices

The following images are the screen images of the client

that connected each device. The (a) is the basic client screen.
The (b) is the screen of the client that connected the electronic
fan. The (c) is the audio system. The (d) is the game.

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this chapter, we shortly explain the technology of the home

network middleware technology and the smart home market,
and also describe the characteristics as compared with the
proposed protocol.

(a) Basic screen

(b) Electronic fan

(c) Audio system

(d) Game in signage

Figure 5. User Interfaces

B. Performance Test
Performance test was to measure the speed of connection
between the client and the device. The measured time is
started when the pairing begins between them, and is ended
when the smart phone shows the user interface.
For the test, we checked the time of the process 50 times. In
android phone, because the basic processes have worked in
the background, the measured error occurred frequently.
Especially, the measured value of the error is large in the
Bluetooth pairing session.
The following table shows the time of the measurement.
TABLE 3. THE TIME OF THE MEASUREMENT

Process
NFC connection
Bluetooth pairing

Time (ms)
43.9
1872.9

Transfer the interface data (non-save mode)

490~1587

Transfer the interface data (save mode)

138~868

The save mode, described in the section Efficiency, is that

the client saved and used the user interface data of the device
connected once. The efficiency was improved more than 50%.
IV. RELATED WORKS
The device control protocol is associated with the home
network technology and the smart home technology in terms
of controlling various devices by using a mobile terminal. In

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A. Smart home market and technologies

Smart home market began with the spread of the Internet in
the late 1990s. The home appliance manufacturers and IT
companies have developed the technologies to connect various
devices in the home. These technologies make it possible for
us to control and use them. However, the market was deflated
because of the lack of connectivity between devices of other
companies, the problem of role-sharing between vendors and
the cost of the deployment.
Recently, smart pad, smart TV, and smart phone is
beginning to be widely used. Due to this, the application
service, such as smart grid and u-health using a smart device,
has been introduced and the smart home market is expected to
grow.
Leading manufacturing companies of smart home are
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Sony and AT&T. These companies
are actively investing in smart home technology under the
plan of its own.
In smart home, the user controls the device using a mobile
phone or a dedicated remote controller. The home gateway
server is used to control devices, rather than a direct
connection between the device and the mobile terminal. The
home gateway, which is always connected with devices, such
as air conditioner, a refrigerator, TV, and so on, makes the
user to know the status of home devices and helps to control
them [4,6].
And there are problems of the initial configuration of the
devices and the user registration process. Because these
processes may be difficult to the user who is unfamiliar with
the smart home service. Recently, studies for solving these
problems is underway [8].
B. Home network middleware
Home network middleware is a protocol for data exchange
between devices. The widely used middlewares include UPnP,
DLNA, Jini, and HAVi.
UPnP(Universal Plug and Play) is a set of protocols for
pervasive peer-to-peer network connectivity of devices and is
designed to bring easy to use and flexible [7]. DLNA(Digital
Living Network Alliance) is as a de-facto standard for
multimedia sharing in the home network [5]. Jini is a javabased technology for dynamically arranging devices on
networks and mutually providing device functions [9].
In order to solve the problem of user interface, CEA has
announced the CEA-2014 which includes the web
technologies and UPnP RUI. Structure proposed by CEA2014 is a system that uses the server which provides the user
interface. The client requests the profile-based user interface
to the server.
V. CONCLUSIONS
The proposed protocol, which is the device control protocol,
solves the problem of the compatibility of the connection

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between a device and a smart phone. This protocol can make

it possible to control various devices by using an application
in the smart phone. Because it downloads the user interface
data from the device through Bluetooth.
In this paper, we presented the message structure and the
flow of the protocol. And we evaluated the performance of the
protocol throughout the experiment. In addition, it was shown
that there is a speed improvement by using a method of
reusing the data of the user interface.

[8]
[9]

Eun-Seo Lee et al., Automating Configuration System and Protocol

for Next-Generation Home Appliances, ETRI Journal, vol. 35, no. 6,
2013.
Kadowaki, K. et al., Design and Implementation of Adaptive Jini
Systemto SupportUndefined Services, Proceedings of the 6th
Communication Networks and Services Research Conference, 2008.
Jong-hyuk Roh received the B.E., M.E, Ph.D.
degrees in computer engineering from the Inha
University, Korea, in 1996, 1998, and 2006. He is
currently a senior researcher at ETRI since 2000. His
research interests are computer security and privacy.

REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]

Rafael Ballagas, Jan Borchers, Michael Rohs, Jennifer G. Sheridan,

"The Smart Phone: A Ubiquitous Input Device," IEEE Pervasive
Computing, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 70-77, Jan.-March 2006.
Wu. T. The SRP Authentication and Key Exchange System", RFC
2945, 2000.
Ubiquitous computing, http://wikipedia.org.
Richard Harper, Inside the Smart Home, Springer, 2003.
DLNA, Digital Living Network Alliance Networked Device
Interoperability Guidelines: Expanded, http://www.dlna.org.
GSMA, Vision of Smart Home the Role of Mobile in the Home of the
Future, www.gamaembeddedmobile.com, 2011.
UPnP, UPnP Technology The Simple, Seamless Home Network,
http://upnp.org.

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Seunghun Jin received the B.S. and M.S degrees in

computer science from the Soongsil Uiversity, Korea,
in 1993 and 1995, and the Ph.D. degree in computer
science from the Chungnam national university,
Korea in 2004. He is a managing director in the cyber
security core technology research department at ETRI.
His research interests are computer/network security,
PKI, and Identity management.

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