Page 73 - Raspberry Pi as a Foundation for Boosting Computer and Technology Literacy

Home automation 5.5

5.5 Home automation 5.5
The application of Raspberry Pi devices in home automation is anal-
ogous to their use in the aforementioned industrial settings. In this
case, however, rather than controlling industrial machinery, the IoT
system includes an array of ‘smart’ home appliances. These electronic
devices can be classified into two main categories: ‘two-state’ devices
(e.g. lights, doors, curtains) and ‘calling’ devices (e.g. heaters, fridges,
boilers, cameras). The term ‘two-state’ refers to devices that can be in
one of two states at any given time (i.e. on/off or open/closed) and are
capable of only receiving commands. In contrast, the ‘calling’ applianc-
es are equipped with sensors, enabling them to transmit their meas-
urements back to the master node (Stojanoski et al. 2017).
Developers can utilize similar wireless communication protocols, as
well as some less formal methods, to send and receive data from their
master nodes. Thus, in addition to Wi-Fi (i.e. LAN or WLAN) and Blue-
tooth, which are limited to local use near the master node, individuals
could decide to extend their connectivity via mobile networks (Ven-
katesh et al. 2018).
One popular way of effectively communicating with an IoT system
over the Internet is through a graphical control centre. For instance,
it could be a GUI program written in Python (Jamil and Ahmad 2015),
a web application (Patchava, Kandala, and Babu 2015; Venkatesh et
al. 2018), or a mobile application (Stojanoski et al. 2017). To avoid the
development of a custom control centre, one may want to consider
utilizing existing solutions, such as an IR or radio remote control. Al-
ternatively, one could send commands to the master node via email,
specifying the command in the messages’ subject (Jain, Vaibhav, and
Goyal 2014).
Finally, a valuable feature to incorporate into a home automation
system is a response mechanism, allowing the master node to send no-
tifications to the owner. For instance, this could be used for fire alarms
or motion detection alerts. Such functionality can be achieved through
various methods, with the most commonly chosen option being SMS
(Bin Bahrudin, Kassim, and Buniyamin 2013; Patchava, Kandala, and
Babu 2015).

In DIY projects
The Internet is full of interesting and useful projects, many of which
are super simple, while others might be extremely complex. The offi-

73