Challenges and Limitations in a Back-End
Controlled SmartHome
Thesis Work Presentation
06.06.2006
Niklas Salmela
Supervisor: Prof. Jorma Virtamo
Instructor: M.Sc. Heikki Loukojärvi
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Contents
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
Introduction

What is a Smart House?

Back-end controlled SmartHome
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Challenges

Conclusions
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Introduction
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
New Internet based services are appearing (VoD, IPTV,
VoIP, etc.)
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Peoples need for security is rising
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Researches show that the interest for “Smart Houses” is
increasing
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A ”normal” Smart House contain mostly functionalities
which address home security and home automation

In a back-end controlled SmartHome there can further be
included Internet based services
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What is a Smart House?

There is not a single definition of a Smart House
 A “smart device” does not make a Smart House

Interaction between smart devices is common in most of
the definitions of a Smart House

Common services in Smart Houses:
Home Automation
Home Control
Home Security
Home Surveillance
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Usually controlled by external keypads or touch screens, in
some cases by a PC in the house
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What is a Smart House? (cont.)

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The local commands may be transmitted with any
appropriate protocol, either wirelessly or by wires
 For home automation KNX is the most used standard,
another (simple) one is X10 power line communication
 For home security RF communication is popular
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Back-end controlled SmartHome
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
A back-end controlled SmartHome is a Smart House that is
connected to the Internet
 To get full functionality the connection should be an
always on, broadband connection

All the functionalities of an ordinary Smart House stay the
same

In the basic case no further services are introduced, the
added value comes from the remote access
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Back-end controlled SmartHome (cont.)

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Back-end servers allow remote control and monitoring of
the SmartHome
 Possible with any Internet capable device (mobile phone,
PDA, PC, STB, etc.)
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Back-end controlled SmartHome (cont.)

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The use of the SmartHome via the back-end is through a
portal page, which contains the different services available
at the moment
 The look & feel should be the same regardless of the
device used to access
 Restricted version for mobile phones without browsers
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Challenges
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Some devices in the home might generate high amounts of
network traffic, e.g. a network camera
The current situation with broadband speeds do not allow
for this
Until the connection speeds change,
we have to change the behavior of
the cameras
By changing the compression level
By limiting the frames per second
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Challenges (cont.)
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Making the SmartHome back-end controlled
=> SmartHome must be accessible from the Internet
The gateway performs a port mapping, e.g.
 The requests to the gateways WAN IP on port 1234 will
be forwarded to the security
 The requests to the gateways WAN IP on port 4321 will
be forwarded to the surveillance
Home
Security
Gateway
(NAT)
Internet
Camera
Private IP Addresses
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Public IP Addresses
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Challenges (cont.)
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
Port mapping creates security issues as we cannot know
who accesses the equipment. Especially critical in security
and surveillance services
 The equipment has password protection in itself, but is
this enough?
 Weak/default passwords a real hazard

The access must be restricted
 Requires not yet common features from the gateway
 Source IP filtering in the port mapping => devices behind
the NAT only accessible from a single (or a set of) IP
address(es)
 The use of VPN in the connection between the back-end
and the home. Secure, but requires much from the Backend and from the home gateway (e.g. VPN and VLAN)
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Conclusions
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
The services can already be implemented

The bandwidth will not be a problem much longer, speeds
are constantly increasing

Biggest problems are in making the connections secure
 Between the home and back-end
 Between the user and back-end
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No single solution is yet decided
 Much depends on the future of home gateways
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Questions?
Thank you!
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