Iot Home Auto
Iot Home Auto
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Abstract
Smart home systems achieved great popularity in the last decades as they
increase the comfort and quality of life. Most smart home systems are controlled by
smartphones and microcontrollers. A smartphone application is used to control and
monitor home functions using wireless communication techniques. We explore the
concept of smart home with the integration of IoT services and cloud computing
to it, by embedding intelligence into sensors and actuators, networking of smart
things using the corresponding technology, facilitating interactions with smart
things using cloud computing for easy access in different locations, increasing
computation power, storage space and improving data exchange efficiency. In this
chapter we present a composition of three components to build a robust approach
of an advanced smart home concept and implementation.
Keywords: smart home, IoT, cloud computing, event processing, home appliances,
rule-based event processing
1. Introduction
Classic smart home, internet of things, cloud computing and rule-based event
processing, are the building blocks of our proposed advanced smart home integrated
compound. Each component contributes its core attributes and technologies to the
proposed composition. IoT contributes the internet connection and remote manage-
ment of mobile appliances, incorporated with a variety of sensors. Sensors may
be attached to home related appliances, such as air-conditioning, lights and other
environmental devices. And so, it embeds computer intelligence into home devices to
provide ways to measure home conditions and monitor home appliances’ functional-
ity. Cloud computing provides scalable computing power, storage space and applica-
tions, for developing, maintaining, running home services, and accessing home
devices anywhere at anytime. The rule-based event processing system provides the
control and orchestration of the entire advanced smart home composition.
Combining technologies in order to generate a best of breed product, already
appear in recent literature in various ways. Christos Stergioua et al. [1] merge cloud
computing and IoT to show how the cloud computing technology improves the
functionality of the IoT. Majid Al-Kuwari [2] focus on embedded IoT for using
analyzed data to remotely execute commands of home appliances in a smart home.
Trisha Datta et al. [3] propose a privacy-preserving library to embed traffic shap-
ing in home appliances. Jian Mao et al. [4] enhance machine learning algorithms to
play a role in the security in a smart home ecosystem. Faisal Saeed et al. [5] propose
using sensors to sense and provide in real-time, fire detection with high accuracy.
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IoT and Smart Home Automation
In this chapter we explain the integration of classic smart home, IoT and cloud
computing. Starting by analyzing the basics of smart home, IoT, cloud computing
and event processing systems. We discuss their complementarity and synergy, detail-
ing what is currently driving to their integration. We also discuss what is already
available in terms of platforms, and projects implementing the smart home, cloud
and IoT paradigm. From the connectivity perspective, the added IoT appliances and
the cloud, are connected to the internet and in this context also to the home local
area network. These connections complement the overall setup to a complete unified
and interconnected composition with extended processing power, powerful 3rd
party tools, comprehensive applications and an extensive storage space.
In the rest of this chapter we elaborate on each of the four components. In
Section 1, we describe the classic smart home, in Section 2, we introduce the
internet of things [IoT], in Section 3, we outline cloud computing and in Section 4,
we present the event processing module. In Section 5, we describe the composition
of an advanced smart home, incorporating these four components. In Section 6, we
provide some practical information and relevant selection considerations, for build-
ing a practical advanced smart home implementation. In Section 7, we describe our
experiment introducing three examples presenting the essence of our integrated
proposal. Finally, we identify open issues and future directions in the future of
advanced smart home components and applications.
Smart home is the residential extension of building automation and involves the
control and automation of all its embedded technology. It defines a residence that has
appliances, lighting, heating, air conditioning, TVs, computers, entertainment sys-
tems, big home appliances such as washers/dryers and refrigerators/freezers, security
and camera systems capable of communicating with each other and being controlled
remotely by a time schedule, phone, mobile or internet. These systems consist of
switches and sensors connected to a central hub controlled by the home resident
using wall-mounted terminal or mobile unit connected to internet cloud services.
Smart home provides, security, energy efficiency, low operating costs and
convenience. Installation of smart products provide convenience and savings of
time, money and energy. Such systems are adaptive and adjustable to meet the
ongoing changing needs of the home residents. In most cases its infrastructure is
flexible enough to integrate with a wide range of devices from different providers
and standards.
The basic architecture enables measuring home conditions, process instru-
mented data, utilizing microcontroller-enabled sensors for measuring home condi-
tions and actuators for monitoring home embedded devices.
The popularity and penetration of the smart home concept is growing in a good
pace, as it became part of the modernization and reduction of cost trends. This is
achieved by embedding the capability to maintain a centralized event log, execute
machine learning processes to provide main cost elements, saving recommenda-
tions and other useful reports.
A typical smart home is equipped with a set of sensors for measuring home
conditions, such as: temperature, humidity, light and proximity. Each sensor is
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Creates the cloud service for managing home appliances which will be hosted
on a cloud infrastructure. The managing service allows the user, controlling the
outputs of smart actuators associated with home appliances, such as such as
lamps and fans. Smart actuators are devices, such as valves and switches, which
perform actions such as turning things on or off or adjusting an operational sys-
tem. Actuators provides a variety of functionalities, such as on/off valve service,
positioning to percentage open, modulating to control changes on flow conditions,
emergency shutdown (ESD). To activate an actuator, a digital write command is
issued to the actuator.
Home access technologies are commonly used for public access doors. A com-
mon system uses a database with the identification attributes of authorized people.
When a person is approaching the access control system, the person’s identification
attributes are collected instantly and compared to the database. If it matches the
database data, the access is allowed, otherwise, the access is denied. For a wide
distributed institute, we may employ cloud services for centrally collecting persons’
data and processing it. Some use magnetic or proximity identification cards, other
use face recognition systems, finger print and RFID.
In an example implementation, an RFID card and an RFID reader have been
used. Every authorized person has an RFID card. The person scanned the card via
RFID reader located near the door. The scanned ID has been sent via the internet to
the cloud system. The system posted the ID to the controlling service which com-
pares the scanned ID against the authorized IDs in the database.
To enable all of the above described activities and data management, the system
is composed of the following components, as described in Figure 1.
a. Sensors to collect internal and external home data and measure home condi-
tions. These sensors are connected to the home itself and to the attached-
to-home devices. These sensors are not internet of things sensors, which are
attached to home appliances. The sensors’ data is collected and continually
transferred via the local network, to the smart home server.
b. Processors for performing local and integrated actions. It may also be con-
nected to the cloud for applications requiring extended resources. The sensors’
data is then processed by the local server processes.
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IoT and Smart Home Automation
Figure 1.
Smart home paradigm with optional cloud connectivity.
e. Database to store the processed data collected from the sensors [and cloud
services]. It will also be used for data analysis, data presentation and visualiza-
tion. The processed data is saved in the attached database for future use.
The internet of things (IoT) paradigm refers to devices connected to the inter-
net. Devices are objects such as sensors and actuators, equipped with a telecom-
munication interface, a processing unit, limited storage and software applications.
It enables the integration of objects into the internet, establishing the interaction
between people and devices among devices. The key technology of IoT includes
radio frequency identification (RFID), sensor technology and intelligence technol-
ogy. RFID is the foundation and networking core of the construction of IoT. Its
processing and communication capabilities along with unique algorithms allows
the integration of a variety of elements to operate as an integrated unit but at the
same time allow easy addition and removal of components with minimum impact,
making IoT robust but flexible to absorb changes in the environment and user
preferences. To minimize bandwidth usage, it is using JSON, a lightweight version
of XML, for inter components and external messaging.
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Figure 2.
Cloud computing paradigm.
IoT and smart home can benefit from the wide resources and functionalities of
cloud to compensate its limitation in storage, processing, communication, support
in pick demand, backup and recovery. For example, cloud can support IoT service
management and fulfillment and execute complementary applications using the
data produced by it. Smart home can be condensed and focus just on the basic and
critical functions and so minimize the local home resources and rely on the cloud
capabilities and resources. Smart home and IoT will focus on data collection, basic
processing, and transmission to the cloud for further processing. To cope with secu-
rity challenges, cloud may be private for highly secured data and public for the rest.
IoT, smart home and cloud computing are not just a merge of technologies. But
rather, a balance between local and central computing along with optimization of
resources consumption. A computing task can be either executed on the IoT and
smart home devices or outsourced to the cloud. Where to compute depends on the
overhead tradeoffs, data availability, data dependency, amount of data transporta-
tion, communications dependency and security considerations. On the one hand,
the triple computing model involving the cloud, IoT and smart home, should
minimize the entire system cost, usually with more focus on reducing resource
consumptions at home. On the other hand, an IoT and smart home computing
service model, should improve IoT users to fulfill their demand when using cloud
applications and address complex problems arising from the new IoT, smart home
and cloud service model.
Some examples of healthcare services provided by cloud and IoT integration:
properly managing information, sharing electronic healthcare records enable high-
quality medical services, managing healthcare sensor data, makes mobile devices
suited for health data delivery, security, privacy, and reliability, by enhancing
medical data security and service availability and redundancy and assisted-living
services in real-time, and cloud execution of multimedia-based health services.
Smart home and IoT are rich with sensors, which generate massive data flows
in the form of messages or events. Processing this data is above the capacity of
a human being’s capabilities [8–10]. Hence, event processing systems have been
developed and used to respond faster to classified events. In this section, we focus
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IoT and Smart Home Automation
on rule management systems which can sense and evaluate events to respond to
changes in values or interrupts. The user can define event-triggered rule and to con-
trol the proper delivery of services. A rule is composed of event conditions, event
pattern and correlation-related information which can be combined for modeling
complex situations. It was implemented in a typical smart home and proved its
suitability for a service-oriented system.
The system can process large amounts of events, execute functions to monitor,
navigate and optimize processes in real-time. It discovers and analyzes anomalies or
exceptions and creates reactive/proactive responses, such as warnings and prevent-
ing damage actions. Situations are modeled by a user-friendly modeling interface
for event-triggered rules. When required, it breaks them down into simple, under-
standable elements. The proposed model can be seamlessly integrated into the
distributed and service-oriented event processing platform.
The evaluation process is triggered by events delivering the most recent state
and information from the relevant environment. The outcome is a decision graph
representing the rule. It can break down complex situations to simple conditions,
and combine them with each other, composing complex conditions. The output
is a response event raised when a rule fires. The fired events may be used as
input for other rules for further evaluation. Event patterns are discovered when
multiple events occur and match a pre-defined pattern. Due to the graphical
model and modular approach for constructing rules, rules can be easily adapted
to domain changes. New event conditions or event patterns can be added or
removed from the rule model. Rules are executed by event services, which sup-
ply the rule engine with events and process the evaluation result. To ensure the
availability of suitable processing resources, the system can run in a distributed
mode, on multiple machines and facilitate the integration with external systems,
as well. The definition of relationships and dependencies among events that are
relevant for the rule processing, are performed using sequence sets, generated
by the rule engine. The rule engine constructs sequences of events relevant to a
specific rule condition to allow associating events by their context data. Rules
automatically perform actions in response when stated conditions hold. Actions
generate response events, which trigger response activities. Event patterns can
match temporal event sequences, allowing the description of home situations
where the occurrences of events are relevant. For example, when the door is kept
open too long.
The following challenges are known with this model: structure for the processed
events and data, configuration of services and adapters for processing steps, includ-
ing their input and output parameters, interfaces to external systems for sensing
data and for responding by executing transactions, structure for the processed
events and data, data transformations, data analysis and persistence. It allows to
model which events should be processed by the rule service and how the response
events should be forwarded to other event services. The process is simple: data is
collected and received from adapters which forward events to event services that
consume them. Initially the events are enriched to prepare the event data for the
rule processing. For example, the response events are sent to a service for sending
notifications to a call agent, or to services which transmit event delay notifications
and event updates back to the event management system.
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of the response action. To allow rapid and flexible event handling, an event process-
ing language is used, which allows fast configuration of the resources required to
handle the expected sequence of activities per event type. It is composed of two
modules, ESP and CEP. ESP efficiently handles the event, analyzes it and selects the
appropriate occurrence. CEP handles aggregated events. Event languages describe
complex event-types applied over the event log.
In this section, we focus on the integration of smart home, IoT and cloud com-
puting to define a new computing paradigm. We can find in the literature section
[11–14] surveys and research work on smart home, IoT and cloud computing sepa-
rately, emphasizing their unique properties, features, technologies, and drawbacks.
However, our approach is the opposite. We are looking at the synergy among these
three concepts and searching for ways to integrate them into a new comprehensive
paradigm, utilizing its common underlying concepts as well as its unique attributes,
to allow the execution of new processes, which could not be processed otherwise.
Figure 3 depicts the advanced smart-home main components and their inter-
connectivity. On the left block, the smart home environment, we can see the typical
Figure 3.
Advanced smart home—integrating smart home, IoT and cloud computing.
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IoT and Smart Home Automation
devices connected to a local area network [LAN]. This enables the communica-
tion among the devices and outside of it. Connected to the LAN is a server and
its database. The server controls the devices, logs its activities, provides reports,
answers queries and executes the appropriate commands. For more comprehensive
or common tasks, the smart home server, transfers data to the cloud and remotely
activate tasks in it using APIs, application programming interface processes. In
addition, IoT home appliances are connected to the internet and to the LAN, and so
expands smart home to include IoT. The connection to the internet allows the end
user, resident, to communicate with the smart home to get current information and
remotely activate tasks.
To demonstrate the benefits of the advanced smart home, we use RSA, a robust
asymmetric cryptography algorithm, which generates a public and private key
and encrypts/decrypts messages. Using the public key, everyone can encrypt a
message, but only these who hold the private key can decrypt the sent message.
Generating the keys and encrypting/decrypting messages, involves extensive
calculations, which require considerable memory space and processing power.
Therefore, it is usually processed on powerful computers built to cope with the
required resources. However, due to its limited resources, running RSA in an IoT
device is almost impossible, and so, it opens a security gap in the Internet, where
attackers may easily utilize. To cope with it, we combine the power of the local
smart home processors to compute some RSA calculations and forward more
complicated computing tasks to be processed in the cloud. The results will then
be transferred back to the IoT sensor to be compiled and assembled together, to
generate the RSA encryption/decryption code, and so close the mentioned IoT
security gap. This example demonstrates the data flow among the advanced smart
home components. Where, each component performs its own stack of operations
to generate its unique output. However, in case of complicated and long tasks
it will split the task to sub tasks to be executed by more powerful components.
Referring to the RSA example, the IoT device initiates the need to generate an
encryption key and so, sends a request message to the RSA application, running
in the smart home computer. The smart home computer then asks the “prime
numbers generation” application running on cloud, to provide p and q prime
numbers. Once p and q are accepted, the encryption code is generated. In a later
stage, an IoT device issues a request to the smart home computer to encrypt a
message, using the recent generated RSA encryption key. The encrypted message
is then transferred back to the IoT device for further execution. A similar scenario
may be in the opposite direction, when an IoT device gets a message it may request
the smart home to decrypt it.
To summarize, the RSA scenarios depict the utilization of the strength of the
cloud computing power, the smart home secured computing capabilities and at
the end the limited power of the IoT device. It proves that without this automatic
cooperation, RSA would not be able to be executed at the IoT level.
A more practical example is where several detached appliances, such as an
oven, a slow cooker and a pan on the gas stove top, are active in fulfilling the
resident request. The resident is getting an urgent phone call and leaves home
immediately, without shutting off the active appliances. In case the relevant IoTs
have been tuned to automatically shut down based on a predefined rule, it will be
taken care at the IoT level. Otherwise, the smart home realizes the resident has
left home [the home door has been opened and then locked, the garage has been
opened, the resident’s car left, the main gate was opened and then closed, no one
was at home] and will shut down all active devices classified as risk in case of
absence. It will send an appropriate message to the mailing list defined for such
an occasion.
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Figure 4.
Advanced smart home composition.
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IoT and Smart Home Automation
components on a surface only after the surface is heated enough, values start to
show up. Video cameras for surveillance and analytics. A range of cameras, with a
high-speed connection. Using Raspberry Pi processor is recommended as its camera
module is very efficient due to its flex connector, connected directly to the board.
Sound detectors are widely used for monitoring purposes, detecting sounds and
acting accordingly. Some can even detect ultra-low levels of noise, and fine tune
among various noise levels.
Humidity sensors sense the humidity levels in the air for smart homes. Its accuracy
and precision depend on the sensor design and placement. Certain sensors like the
DHT22, built for rapid prototyping, will always perform poorly when compared to
high-quality sensors like HIH6100. For open spaces, the distribution around the sensor
is expected to be uniform requiring fewer corrective actions for the right calibration.
Smart home communication protocols: bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or GSM. Bluetooth
smart or low energy wireless protocols with mesh capabilities and data encryption
algorithms. Zigbee is mesh networked, low power radio frequency-based protocol
for IoT. X10 protocol that utilizes powerline wiring for signaling and control.
Insteon, wireless and wireline communication. Z-wave specializes in secured
home automation. UPB, uses existing power lines. Thread, a royalty-free protocol
for smart home automation. ANT, an ultra-low-power protocol for building low-
powered sensors with a mesh distribution capability. The preferred protocols are
bluetooth low energy, Z-wave, Zigbee, and thread. Considerations for incorporat-
ing a gateway may include: cloud connectivity, supported protocols, customization
complexity and prototyping support. Home control is composed of the following:
state machine, event bus, service log and timer.
Modularity: enables the bundle concept, runtime dynamics, software compo-
nents can be managed at runtime, service orientation, manage dependencies among
bundles, life cycle layer: controls the life cycle of the bundles, service layers: defines
a dynamic model of communication between various modules, actual services: this
is the application layer. Security layer: optional, leverages Java 2 security architec-
ture and manages permissions from different modules.
OpenHAB is a framework, combining home automation and IoT gateway for
smart homes. Its features: rules engine, logging mechanism and UI abstraction.
Automation rules that focus on time, mood, or ambiance, easy configuration, com-
mon supported hardware:
Domoticz architecture: very few people know about the architecture of
Domoticz, making it extremely difficult to build applications on it without taking
unnecessary risks in building the product itself. For example, the entire design of
general architecture feels a little weird when you look at the concept of a sensor to
control to an actuator. Building advanced applications with Domoticz can be done
using OO based languages.
Deployment of blockchain into home networks can easily be done with
Raspberry Pi. A blockchain secured layer between devices and gateways can be
implemented without a massive revamp of the existing code base. Blockchain is a
technology that will play a role in the future to reassure them with revolutionary
and new business models like dynamic renting for Airbnb.
We can find in the literature and practical reports, many implementations of vari-
ous integrations among part of the main three building blocks, smart home, IoT and
cloud computing. For example, refer to [12–14]. In this section we outline three imple-
mentations, which clearly demonstrate the need and the benefits of interconnecting
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First step is deploying water sensors under every reasonable potential leak
source and an automated master water valve sensor for the whole house, which now
means the house is considered as an IoT.
In case the water sensor detects a leak of water (3), it sends an event to the hub
(2), which triggers the “turn valve off ” application. The home control application
then sends a “turn off ” command to all IoT (3) appliances defined as sensitive to
water stopping and then sends the “turn off ” command to the main water valve
(1). An update message is sent via the messaging system to these appearing in the
notification list (6). This setup helps defending against scenarios where the source
of the water is from the house plumbing. The underlying configuration assumes
an integration via messages and commands between the smart home and the IoT
control system. It demonstrates the dependency and the resulting benefits of
combining smart home and IoT.
Most houses already have the typical collection of smoke detectors (1), but there
is no bridge to send data from the sensor to a smart home hub. Connecting these
sensors to a smart home app (2), enables a comprehensive smoke detection system.
It is further expanded to notify the elevator sensor to block the use of it due to fire
condition (1), and so, it is even further expanded to any IoT sensor (3), who may be
activated due to the detected smoke alert.
In [5] they designed a wireless sensor network for early detection of house fires.
They simulated a fire in a smart home using the fire dynamics simulator and a
language program. The simulation results showed that the system detects fire early.
Figure 5.
Advanced smart home implementations chart.
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IoT and Smart Home Automation
Consider the scenario where you leave home while some of the appliances are
still on. In case your absence is long enough, some of the appliances may over heat
and are about to blowout. To avoid such situations, we connect all IoT appliances’
sensors to the home application (2), so that when all leave home it will automati-
cally adjust all the appliances’ sensors accordingly (3), to avoid damages. Note that
the indication of an empty home is generated by the Smart Home application, while
the “on” indication of the appliance, is generated by IoT. Hence, this scenario is
possible due to the integration between smart home and IoT systems.
Author details
Menachem Domb
Computer Science Department, Ashkelon Academic College, Ashkelon, Israel
© 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
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