Upon a Home Assistant Solution Based on Raspberry Pi Platform

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1 IntroductionThe vision of IoT is to create the framework for a network of physical objectsdevices, embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables the respective devices to collect and exchange data [1].As the era of technology and information expands at high rates, researchers, scientists and hobbyists have begun to bring technology into home, and integrate it with various electronic or mechanical devices, in order to simplify and secure human living experience within society.The IoT envisions a technologic environment that sustains the ability for objects to be sensed and controlled remotely, across existing network infrastructure [2], creating opportunities for more unobstructed integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, with results reflected in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefits [3], [4]. When IoT is augmented with sensors and actuators, the technology becomes an instance of the more general class of cyber-physical systems, and that is what our research effort intends to tackle.As the era of technology and information expands at high rates, researchers, scientists and hobbyists have begun to bring technology into home, and integrate it with various electronic or mechanical devices, in order to simplify and secure human living experience within society.2Literature ReviewThe current state of the art development projects and research papers upon smart home applications are focused on some particular aspects of the field. Some of them have attracted a greater interest, such as electricity consumption management, component and device security, health related intelligent monitoring systems. While many researches have been conducted on certain parts of a smart home system, we have been primarily interested in creating a framework that could serve as a developing environment for various integrations, test different components and configurations, find flaws and identify improvements.Electricity consumption monitoring applications are developed in order to reduce the cost of living. That is from the end user's point of view. Furthermore, from an environmentalist perspective, this type of management can improve the quality of society as less electricity is wasted. For instance, an on-line data power application with consumption data processed in cloud was proposed in [5]. The system consisted in a web server, a website, a hardware interface and the software application for monitoring the electrical switch control. The application generated daily, weekly and yearly reports regarding the electricity consumption. They found that this application encouraged households to carefully watch the energy consumption. Another research direction is related to smart grids, for both home and industry appliances [6]. The smart grid may provide customers the tools they need to reduce energy consumption, thus lowering the electricity costs and a more stable electric grid. The authors argue that high performing homes will have energy efficient walls, fenestration and technologies that communicate with customers.End-user's ability to configure and program features is also a subject of interest in smart home applications. It regards the development of user friendly GUI applications that allow for customizing the system in a preferable way. On the other hand, in [7] the authors observe that the user's daily activities does not map well to programming tasks, thus they do not want to control their devices, but to be in control of their life, time, activities and relationships. End-user programming is typically hard to understand and it is quite rigid, not offering the full control of the system. Among end-user interfaces there are encountered implementations for natural language processing, visual programming, or magnetic refrigerator poetry [8].The most important aspect in a smart home application is about the security standpoint. …