INTRODUCTION
Home automation using the Internet of Things (IoT) and Arduino is the trending flavor to add smartness to homes in India. People are very much passionate to use this technology to give their homes a smart look and make their life easier. IoT and Arduino act as an assistant not only to monitor but also to control the things. Home Automation addresses Safety, Security, Comfort, Convenience, Energy Efficiency and Entertainment to enhance the living experience for residents in Apartments and Villas. Google Assistant voice-enabled Arduino controlled home devices are in good demand nowadays.
HARDWARE COMPONENTS FOR HOME AUTOMATION PROJECTS
The basic hardware components being used nowadays in home automation are Arduino, Node MCU, STM32, Rasberry Pi, Power supply module, Relay module, sensors etc. These hardwares in combination create a beautiful home automation system. Let us understand the components in detail-
Arduino
Arduino IDE is a open-source platform where Arduino boards such as Uno or Mega are used to build electronic projects like IOT based home automation. It has become so popular because it is open source and cheap. The board contains a microcontroller which is programmed easily with simple c++ language. It is designed for all types of users. Arduino can interact with sensors, buttons, GPS etc.
Node MCU
Like Arduino, Node MCU is an open source IOT plateform. It uses the firmware that supports ESP8266, ESP32 . Unique feature of this hardware is that it supports WiFi system. Many home automation projects and projects supporting google assistant are successfully build with Node MCU.
GSM
GSM Module is often used in home automation in India to run pumps automatically, fetch the location of any house or something else. Pumps, lightings, smart energymeters are remotely monitored and even controlled with GSM module projects.
Power Supply
Power Supply the the essential module in any home automation system using arduino. The arduino need 5V power supply and this supply are fed by power module supporting arduino.These are very cheap and easily available in the market and even can be purchased online through Amazon or Flipkart or any other reliable source.
Relay Module
Relay Module can act as Interface between 12 V power from Arduino and 220 V power from main line. It means Relay module uses arduino 12 V power to operate NO and NC. The state of NO or NC controlls the main power.
Sensors
Now the skeleton of the Home automation using Arduino is ready. But life comes to the system only when it does something, Here comes the role of sensors. Arduino senses the connected Digital or Analog sensors and the output performs the desired result.
COMMON EXAMPLES OF HOME AUTOMATION IN INDIA USING IoT IN 2020.
1. Controlling Home Appliances with Smartphone
2. Controlling Home Appliances with Voice Commands
3. Theft Detector
4. Water Pump control using Smartphone or Voice commands
5. Dimming the lights at bedtime
6. Controlling lights based on motion or door sensor
1. Controlling Home Appliances with Smartphone
Home Appliances like lights, geyser oven, Air conditioner etc. can be controlled using IOT and Arduino. Lights are the most commonly used smart products. They are cheap to buy and easy to implement in our house. Think of a situation in a sunny hot day, when we are coming back to our home after a dealing with a tough client. If our drawing is cool enough at room temperature, we wish a lots of thank to God. Here smartphones play a smart role to control the temperature of air-conditioner using IOT and Arduino.
Think of a second situation when you forgot to switch OFF the Oven or light or geyser and went to office in a hurry. You may not dare to ask for leave when you are to appointed for an important presentation before a client. Here, IOT and arduino will be your best friend to help. You can switch OFF your oven, geyser and lights with smart phones and put your presentation smartly.
What is the basic fundamental behind this ? A bluetooth is connected to an arduino. Arduino is powered through a Power Module. Now we download a relay controller App in our Smartphones. When the a relay is Switched ON or OFF in the App with bluetooth activated, relay connected with Arduino is ON or OFF. In this way the appliance is controlled as we desire.
But the limitation of the bluetooth is that it cannot work if the target is beyond 12 m. The limitation is overcome by using WiFi e.g. Node MCU , ESP8266.
2. Controlling Home Appliances with Voice Commands
The home appliances can also be contolled by Voice Commands. We can controlled lights by using voice applications like alexa, google assistant etc from anywhere in the world. We can use IFTTT, adafruit, Blynk, Thingspeak, Ubidots or many more such applets for home automation in Inia using IoT..
Here, we use ESP8266 hardware. Codes are written Blynk or Adafruit or IFTTT. Settings is done in Google assistant to store the commands like-“PLEASE SWITCH ON THE LIGHT”.Google stores the command and gives response also in the same way as per message stored in it like–“OK, SWITCHING ON THE LIGHT”.
3. Theft Detector
Automation is also useful for theft detection in our home. There are some sensors such as PIR sensor which can detect any human or animal but don’t detect any non living thing. If any PIR sensor senses any human energy, it passes the signal to turn on the lights or any buzzer. We can use the same arduino for coding to find the project in action.
4. Water Pump control using Smartphone or Voice commands
This is the most admired and popular Home automation in India using IoT and Arduino in 2020. People have now become aware of the importance of water scarcity and electrical energy. No one wants to either waste even a single drop of water or a single unit of power. Water pumps are controlled in the same way as lights are controlled using Smartphones and detailed in the first example. This automation using IOT and Arduino is also applicable for farmers who want to control pump sets at fields from home.
5. Dimming the lights at bedtime
This is again popular Home automation in India in 2020. People like to have a romantic night and pleasant light. We can dim the bright lights from the bed even without getting up and putting OFF the light manually.
Here we use ESP8266 with Blynk App and its slider bar. Any power module can powerup ESP 8266.. Sliding over sliding bar can dim or bright up the light.
6. Controlling lights based on motion or door sensor
Last but not the least, controlling lights based on motion or door sensor is the demand of the day for Home Automation. At night times when the lights are OFF, we wake up for any regular works. When anybody wakeup, motion sensor interfaced with Arduino senses the motion of the person or motion of the door. It passes signal to switch ON the relay and light glows up. All the manual works of walking and fetching switch boards in dark or dimmed light is bypassed. One application of this concept is swiching ON the toilet light automatically when somebody opens the toilet door.
LIMITATIONS
1. Limitations of Home automation in India using IOT and Arduino is that people get dependent on the system. If the Internet fails, everything drops to the ground.
2.The complex IoT system itself is a big cause of failure. Secondly, the functioning of the sensors cannot be 100% reliable.
3. Thirdly privacy becomes a big issue and challenging in home automation system.
4. Malware and Ransomeware is again a security challenge.
5. Cost is the another limitation which is the extra burden for the customer.