Home Automation with Internet-control Capability

Abstract

Home automation is a trending phenomenon in recent years, the installations of the system are common in new apartments. However, the cost of those systems is high and may not be affordable to the lower class family, despite of the construction costs. In addition, according to the statistics released by Hong Kong Police Force, the number of annual reported burglary crimes in Hong Kong remained above 2500 in the past 3 years. Therefore, this project aims at creating an affordable home automation system with internet capability, which could safe-guard users' houses and provide them convenience to control their electrical appliances at home. Two major objectives in this project are the home automation system and the internet capability. Temperature and humidity sensors, infrared signal receiver and transmitter, and the ultrasonic object detectors were connected to the microcontroller to form the automation system. On the other hand, the internet connection feature is performed by the Wi-Fi shield connected on top of the microcontroller. To enable communication between users and microcontroller, Arduino codes are written in the microcontroller so that users can obtain real-time information at home, control different appliances and be notified when their house door is opened through their mobile devices.