Wi-Fi Based Smart Home Electrical Appliances Remote Control for Visually Impaired Person

Abstract

Visually impaired person facing difficulty in On/Offing home electrical appliances, as sometimes reaching the electrical switches mounted on wall are quite tedious for them. Hence, there is a need of assistive technology to help the visually impaired person manipulating household electrical appliances conveniently. For achieving this objective, a Wi-Fi based Smart Home Electrical Appliances Remote Control is developed and proposed to visually impaired person. In this custom designed remote control panel, Braille text indicator is added along with the mechanical buttons to ease the visually impaired person get known on what the electrical appliances they are choosing to on or off. A miniature voice indicator is embedded on the remote control panel, allowing users to confirm which electrical appliance they have chosen to on or off. Wi-Fi technology is used as a transceiving module for its convenience in top up/removes the electrical appliances from the control system just by assigning specific IP address. The wireless nature of such network allows users to access electrical appliances network from any convenient location within their wireless internet coverage. The developed prototype had been tested with visually impaired participants and their constructive feedbacks had been recorded for continuous product quality improvement. More than 75% of the prototype tested participants gave review of agree or strongly agree in using this remote control system for their house on controlling their electrical appliances.