1IOT AND SMART HOMES Iot and Smart home Internet of Thingsis considered as an umbrella term that covers different technologies which enables connection of different device with Internet and the communication between them.These devices or the systems are completely dependent on the collected data about its surroundings (Alaa et al., 2017). The collected data is used for controlling, monitoring as well as transferring information to the connected devices through the use of the internet.Through the analysis it is possible to carry out specific actions automatically whenever some specific situations or conditions arise. IoT enabled Smart Homes also includes the different sensors connected to the home appliances, lighting devices, security cameras and other tools.All the devices are connected with each other through the Internet (Stojkoska and Trivodaliev, 2017). Furthermore, the devices are controlled by the user in order to monitor as well as control their behavior regardless of user’s location and time constraints. Due to the efficiency the smart homes gained great popularity inthe last few years with the increased access to the internet due to the increased comfort as well as quality of life. Mostof the smart home systems are usually controlled by the users using smartphones, microcontrollers and complex algorithms. Through the smartphones, users can monitor as well as control the different devices in the home by utilizing the wireless communication techniques and protocols. Architecture Any smart home usually consists of multiple devices that are connected to the internet and communicate with other devices. These devices include sensors, different digital appliances,
2IOT AND SMART HOMES or actuators which are not necessarily smart by their own (Stojkoska and Trivodaliev, 2017). The sensor generates related data about the environment they are placed into and send to a central processing unit without add any value to the collected data about the home environment. For example, if the example of a thermostat is considered the it can be stated that thermostat by their own are not “smart” enough to regulate the temperature according to the environment of the house (Alaa et al., 2017).Now if the temperature sensors can collect all data about home environment,temperature of the house, humidity and analyzed that lead to extraction of temperature patterns. In the next stages the revealed patterns will help in decision making for a suitable temperature according to the temperature and humidity without user’s intervention. There are numerous protocols that are used for the required architecture implementation of a smart home with the different devices that will able to communicate with each other. Some of the used protocols are Zigbee, Thread and others (Samuel, 2016).The Zigbee is one of the widely used and open-sourced standards that are developed for smart homes developed by Zigbee Alliance. ZigBee creates a mesh network in order to communicate. This implies that, data signals are bounced from device to another device throughout home that may not be covered by the WiFi networks. The devices are considered as nodes inside a network. The devices work similar to the small transmitters in the same way like the wireless routers.
3IOT AND SMART HOMES References Alaa, M., Zaidan, A. A., Zaidan, B. B., Talal, M., & Kiah, M. L. M. (2017). A review of smart home applications based on Internet of Things.Journal of Network and Computer Applications,97, 48-65. Jose, A. C., & Malekian, R. (2017). Improving smart home security: Integrating logical sensing into smart home.IEEE Sensors Journal,17(13), 4269-4286. Samuel, S. S. I. (2016, March). A review of connectivity challenges in IoT-smart home. In2016 3rd MEC International conference on big data and smart city (ICBDSC)(pp. 1-4). IEEE. Stojkoska, B. L. R., & Trivodaliev, K. V. (2017). A review of Internet of Things for smart home: Challenges and solutions.Journal of Cleaner Production,140, 1454-1464.