Home remote control by smartphone
Novák Balázs
Obuda University
email: novb69@gmail.com
I. INTRODUCTION
Nowadays more and more technological
solutions support our life. As well as our everyday
actions, like HVAC (heating, ventilation and air
conditioning) or control of lightning.
The intelligent home means such a home, where
the building itself does the household activities or
only a little human intervention is needed. Its aim is
to achieve improved comfort, energy efficiency and
security.
And it can also support people living with
disabilities. Unfortunately a lot of people live with
disabilities in the world, and most of them are
physically disabled people.
TABLE I
TYPE OF DISABILITIES IN HUNGARY
physically
disabled
visual
hearing
mental
health
intellectual
other
41,37%
13,08%
11,23%
8,24%
7,62%
18,46%
II. CONTROL OF LIGHTNING
A simple problem, like the controlling of
lightning can be difficult for those people who live
with physical disability, if they have to solve this
problem with the help of traditional switch. It
would be very helpful for them, if they had such a
gadget which is able to control lightning in a
wireless way.
Smart phone is the best disposal of the above
written problem to the user interface, because it has
all the necessary functions for it. Besides the
smartphone, a switch module is also needed so that
these two devices can communicate with each
other.
III. SMARTPHONE
Smartphone is a mobile phone with operating
system, more advanced computing capability and
connectivity than basic feature phone. Modern
smartphones include the features of touchscreen
computer, including Wi-Fi or Bluetooth wireless
communication technology.
A. First Smartphone
In 2007, Apple Inc. introduced the iPhone, one
of the first smartphones.
In 2008, a new
smartphone called HTC Dream was released, it was
the first model which uses the Android system.
B. Operating Systems
The two most common operating systems are
iOS, and Android.
1) iOS is a mobile operating system developed
by Apple Inc. and distributed exclusively for Apple
hardware.
2) Android is an open-source platform founded
by Google, along with major hardware and software
developers, such as Intel, HTC, Motorola and
Samsung.
C. Applications
Due to the operating system, the programmers
can write any applications to the smartphone.
During writing the app, they have to pay attention
to the easy and intuitive manageability, and the
different size of displays.
IV. WIRELESS COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
Wireless communication is the transfer of
information between two or more points that are not
connected by an electrical conductor.
The most common wireless technologies use
radio. With radio waves distances can be short,
such as a few meters or as far as thousands or even
millions of kilometers for deep-space radio
communications.
The two most common wireless communication
technologies are the Wifi and the Bluetooth. Both
of them are technologies that allow an electronic
device to exchange data in a wireless way. The
differences
between
the
two
wireless
communication technologies are the distance of
communication, and the power consumption.
Bluetooth has shorter range for the communication
than Wi-Fi, but Wi-Fi has fairly high power
consumption.
ARM Cortex-M0: This is an optimized smaller
core to create smaller silicon die sizes thus lowest
chip prices.
TABLE II
ARM CORTEX-M INSTRUCTION SETS
CortexThumb- Hardware Hardware Satured DSP
FloatingThumb
M
2
multiply divide
math
extensions point
V. SWITCH MODULE
The switch module contains a wireless
communication
module,
a
programmable
microcontroller and a relay. The most important
features of the switch modules are to be small, and
the low consumption.
1) Wireless communication module: In order to
reach the ability that the user interface can
communicate with the switch module, it has to
contain a wireless communication module, too. It
could be the Bluetooth 4.0 module, because it has
low power requirements, operating for "months or
years" on a button cell, and its size is smaller than a
coin.
2) Microcontroller: Microcontroller is a small
computer on a single integrated circuit containing a
microprocessor, small memory, and programmable
I/O peripherals. Microcontrollers are used in
automatically controlled products and devices, such
as automobile engine control systems, remote
controls, appliances, and other embedded systems.
3) ARM Cortex-M: This is a group of 32-bit
RISC ARM processor cores licensed by ARM
Holdings.
The
cores
are
intended
for
microcontroller use, and consists of the Cortex-M0,
Cortex-M0+, Cortex-M1, Cortex-M3, Cortex-M4.
CortexM0
CortexM0+
CortexM1
CortexM3
CortexM4
1 or 32
No
cycle
1 or 32
No
cycle
3 or 33
No
cycle
Most
Subset
Most
Subset
Most
Subset
Entire
Entire
1 cycle
Entire
Entire
1 cycle
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Optional
The Cortex-M0 / M0+ / M1 were designed to be
the smallest size possible, thus having the least
instructions of the Cortex-M family.
4) Relay: This is an electrically operated switch.
Many relays use an electromagnet to mechanically
operate a switch, but other operating principles are
also used, such as solid-state relays. Relays are used
where it is necessary to control a circuit by a lowpower signal, or where several circuits must be
controlled by one signal.
REFERENCES
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_automation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcontroller
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relay