Design, Specification and Implementation of a Distributed Home Automation System

Abstract This work presents the design and model implementation of a novel home automation system applying the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. It seeks simplified design protocols for developing a robust home automation system to deal with the problems of complexity, multiple incompatible standards and the resulting expenses in the existing systems. The embedded system features the ubiquitous low-cost 32-bit ESP8266 System-on-chip (SoC) module interfaced to some sensors and actuators for interaction in the home. Flexibility in the remote access, operation and management is achieved through HTML5 based intuitive mobile and web GUI applications. Web Application Messaging Protocol (WAMP) is deployed to ensure that individual applications and systems seamlessly communicate with a relatively high level of security using robust web service security protocol. This system offers a cost-effective and efficient solution, because the costs of a dedicated public IP address and a high-end computer are excluded, which are present mostly in other solutions.