Home Automation Using Raspberry Pi

Running head: HOME AUTOMATION USING RASPBERRY PI 1
Home Automation Using Raspberry Pi
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation

1 Abstract
The increased adoption of smart home automation has enhanced and improved on how home
appliances are used. The technology is becoming more popular every day because of the
simplicity, flexibility, and ease of monitoring and controlling the home components. The
complexity and cost of implementing the home automation technology increases if more devices
and appliances are to be added. The system integrates all the electrical components with each
other in the house. Techniques and approaches used in the home automation entails those in
controlling home tasks like lighting. Some of the objectives that home automation system seeks
to achieve include: Centralized management of home appliances which is a very convenient way
to keep up with the new technology by connecting all the home appliances to a single interface
and allow monitoring and controlling from an application on a phone or tablet. Secondly, energy
saving because the system allows the home owners to control how the devices are used thus are
able to turn off the appliances that are not being used to conserve energy.
This project was undertaken by Saleh and Hussam and it gave them a great experience and a
good opportunity through which one can learn and do experiments. More so, many authors can
get a chance in which they can be able to get a chance where they can closely experiment and
much more learning about what happens in the design and development stages respectively of
the home automated systems. There is a lot of delight in that all the above was explored with
regards to this topic as the major project title and in one way or another, there was a creation of a
version of home automated systems of our own. This has made it to closely relate with the
current tech which was of greater interest when doing the study and the overall research in
ensuring there is revolutionization of the way people live in the future.

Table of Contents
1 Abstract....................................................................................................................................2
2 Introduction..............................................................................................................................4
2.1 Home Automation in the Past...........................................................................................5
2.2 Home Automation in Present Time..................................................................................6
3 System Requirements...............................................................................................................7
3.1 Block Diagram..................................................................................................................7
3.2 Hardware Requirements....................................................................................................7
3.3 HC-05 Bluetooth Module..................................................................................................8
3.3.1 Transformer...............................................................................................................9
3.3.2 Voltage Regulator 7805...........................................................................................10
3.3.3 Rectifier...................................................................................................................12
3.3.4 Capacitor Filter........................................................................................................12
3.3.5 Liquid Crystal Display (LCD).................................................................................13
3.3.6 Diodes......................................................................................................................14
3.3.7 Raspberry Pi Board..................................................................................................15
3.3.8 Relay Circuit............................................................................................................16
3.4 PN Junction Operation....................................................................................................17
3.5 Light Emitting Diodes (LED).........................................................................................18
3.6 Software Requirements...................................................................................................18
3.6.1 Android application.................................................................................................19
3.6.2 Android Studio.........................................................................................................19
3.6.3 Python IDLE............................................................................................................19
3.6.4 Apache and MySQL................................................................................................19
3.6.5 Raspbian..................................................................................................................19
4 Home Automation Technologies............................................................................................20
4.1 UPB.................................................................................................................................20
4.2 INSTEON........................................................................................................................20
4.3 Z-Wave............................................................................................................................21
4.4 ZigBee.............................................................................................................................21
4.5 WIFI................................................................................................................................21
4.6 Bluetooth.........................................................................................................................22

4.7 Thread.............................................................................................................................22
5 Methodology..........................................................................................................................22
5.1 Incremental Development Model....................................................................................22
5.2 Schematic Diagram.........................................................................................................24
5.3 System Layout.................................................................................................................25
6 Bill of Materials......................................................................................................................25
7 Implementation.......................................................................................................................26
7.1 Setting up Raspberry Pi...................................................................................................26
7.2 Installation.......................................................................................................................27
7.3 Downloading Android Application.................................................................................28
7.4 Pairing the application via Bluetooth..............................................................................28
8 Testing....................................................................................................................................29
8.1 Hardware Testing............................................................................................................29
8.1.1 Continuity Test........................................................................................................29
8.1.2 Power on Test..........................................................................................................30
9 Results and Discussion...........................................................................................................34
9.1 Challenges Faces.............................................................................................................34
9.2 Advantages of Home Automation...................................................................................36
9.3 Limitations and Future enhancements............................................................................38
9.4 Future Enhancements......................................................................................................38
9.5 Budget Analysis..............................................................................................................44
9.5.1 Design and Development Cost................................................................................44
9.5.2 Hardware Cost.........................................................................................................44
9.5.3 Maintenance Cost....................................................................................................45
10 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................45
11 References...........................................................................................................................48

2 Introduction
Technological revolution and evolvement have led to the rise of the need to automate homes and
offices. Office and home automation are concepts that has existed for a long time and has been
commonly referred to as Intelligent Home or Smart home (Vujović & Maksimović, 2015). They
include centralized security locks, appliances, lighting, among other systems aimed at enhancing
security systems, conserve energy, and improve comfort. This technology is growing quickly and
is becoming a popular but is limited because other users like the elderly and the disabled tend to
reject these systems because of the cost and complexities that they face. Technology
advancements in wireless connection has enabled implementation of such systems using WIFI,
GSM, or Bluetooth; every connection has its unique applications, specifications, and
requirements. This project proposes designing a home and office automation system using
Raspberry PI to control office and home appliances that have been connected. It is very
convenient to the users because all the devices and appliances can be controlled from an android
phone or tablet by downloading the android application that has been developed to control the
appliances. The system will utilize Bluetooth connection to facilitate users to issue commands
using a graphical user interface (GUI). The receiver will then receive issued commands and
forward them to Raspberry PI dashboard to be processed (Bertko & Weber, 2017). This will
enable scheduling of switching the appliances on and off and give the users complete control
over all the connected appliances. The transformer provides the required power supply to the
circuit board. Moreover, real-time home automation system will be demonstrated and simulated.
The android application will be able to record and display the status of each appliance. The
project presents home automation system design and implementation using Raspberry PI to
control and monitor home appliances and device using a tablet or android phone.

Home automation system has improved efficiency, comfort, safety, convenience, and energy
saving. The popularity of this technology is increasing because of the flexibility and easiness of
controlling, monitoring, and checking the status of the home appliances at the comfort of the user
using a mobile phone or tablet (Balasubramanian & Cellatoglu, 2010). However, the cost and
complexity increase with the increased number of appliances to be controlled or monitored. In
the recent years, the desire to automate home appliance control has risen because of the
simplicity and affordability through smartphone and tablet connectivity. The system integrates
all the electrical components with each other in the house. Techniques and approaches used in
the home automation entails those in controlling home tasks like lighting.
Home appliances may be connected together via a home network to facilitate remote control and
access through the internet using a personal computer, smartphone, or a tablet. The appliances
and home systems can communicate in an integrated way through information technology
integration in order to achieve efficiency and safety benefits (Saini, et al., 2016).
2.1 Home Automation in the Past
The formation of home automation started physically starting with the formation of
mechanization materials. Both the automation and centralization of exercises that are deemed
private is usually based on a private structure that is electrically-wired. However, enlightening a
room from a switch upgraded people life styles whereby it was more simple and safer to lighten
a broader location just by a single click on a switch. This was followed by the evolution of a
home TV and a remote control in the 1950s. These two innovations played a vital role
considering the point-to-control communication amid gadgets despite lacking a two-route data
trade. As a result, X10 was released as an original convention to be used to wire buildings for
basically for home automation in the 1970s.

Later on, in between 1966-1967, there was what many termed an outstanding invention of an
excellent device which was called the ECHO IV. It had capabilities to register shopping records,
regulate the switching on and off of apparatus, and even control the temperature of a home in
spite of not being industrially sold. This therefore means, the Kitchen Computer was designed
based on the current technology. Due to poor advertising of the apparatus, it was difficult to
design more models despite being furnished for putting away formulations. The evolution of the
internet came as the cutting edge followed by the Wi-Fi revolving into a distinctive contraption
in people’s homes. Consecutively, there were further home innovations ranging from home
system administration and local tech among others. This created a mesh network in the home of
a user while sending 900 MHz signals (Aldrich, 2017). This was popularly termed as the Z-
Wave technology that was capable of linking numerous devices while controlling door locks,
appliances, food monitors among others.
2.2 Home Automation in Present Time
As a result of what many terms as the Internet of Things, innovations have become part of our
daily lives. Smart home innovations are seen to be part of almost everything in our homes
ranging from apparatuses, refrigerators, and even home security can now be easily controlled by
smart innovations at home. Having said so, it is true that all the controlling activities of home
devices are indispensable institutes of the Internet of Things. Presently, smart homes are
designed based on the security of our homes and the fact that many people have a high desire to
live a greener life. For instance, when talking of remote multipurpose control, lights that are
computerized, booking machines, observation sensors among other technologies, are what
people currently depend on as their ears and eyes as far as home systems are concerned.
However, these sensors are designed for various uses like measuring temperature, gas, light,
fluid, and even recognizing commotion.