The world is rapidly changing and adopting automation systems in various fields. Home Automation is one of the fields that is working for improving the quality of life and performing house chores in an automated way using IoT. Many home automation systems have been proposed and developed by various researchers based on different hardware and software technologies. And, improvement is still in process to make these systems more economical and easy to access. This work has focused on developing a Home Automation System which can be accessed over the internet using software from anywhere and control various home appliances connected with a centralized Wi-Fi server. This IoT-based system has been designed using NodeMCU over a Wi-Fi network, that can control and monitor various home appliances and sensors. Programming is performed in Arduino IDE and Flask Framework is implied to connect with a server. This system would not only replace the conventional wall switches but also be helpful to save electricity and reduce cost with a webbased remote control application.
In the last few decades, Internet has played an immense role in the growth of various sectors
related to human life such as education, business, entertainment, living standards, transportation,
traveling, social life, etc. This high-scale development in different areas has developed an idea to
connect multiple devices of the same or different fields with each other but, in a controlled way to
form an Internet of Things (IoT) [
This work has defined a similar type of automation system which is easy to access remotely using a web browser over a laptop or smartphone and can fully control the home devices. In summary, the proposed system makes the following contributions: 1. A microcontroller-based (NodeMCU) based home automation system is designed and implemented that can sync the data to a web server, display the current state of electrical devices and provide control to change the state according to the requirement.
2. A Control Program is defined using Arduino IDE and Flask API is created to connect with the server and transfer data from the microcontroller.
3. A web-based application is designed to provide GUI to users on the front end.
Researchers have been working on all automation technologies from 1970 and tried to upgrade
them with each passing year. IoT comprised of three prime layers i.e. Application Layer,
Transmission layer and Perception Layer, which are further divided into different sub-layers [
ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, Atmel
This work has analyzed the working of a NodeMCU ESP8266 microcontroller-based home automation system that can be controlled through a browser over the same network or internet to activate or deactivate devices based on sensor readings or directly. For this purpose, aHttpClient module has been programmed over NodeMCU using Arduino IDE. This module will receive the data of different devices and accordingly respond back to perform the tasks over the devices connected through a controller. Figure 2 is representing the flowchart for controlling devices over the designed system which starts with making a connection to the browser through HTTP protocol. NodeMCU continually monitors the device sensors connected wirelessly and transfers the measurement data over the server or cloud at regular intervals. Servers are responsible for executing the command/response based on the data received and activate the respective actuator or device to perform the task. A Sensor’s data is analyzed by the program and checked against the respective threshold value. The responding signal to the respective device is activated only after the threshold is attained. Figure 3 is representing the I/O Pins of NodeMCU and its connectivity with two relay devices. In the example shown in the figure, relay devices are connected with pin D13 and D15, from which they received the signals to ON or OFF. The system is using the circuit connections similar to this for the proposed system where relay devices are connected with some appliances to control them.
Proposed Home Automation System is implemented by making a connection of the NodeMCU ESP8266 wifi module with two relays on D13 and D15 pin. The controller is connected via USB to the laptop for programming over the Flask framework. The flask is helpful in making connectivity using Python Programming. Following are the steps that need to be processed in programming: 1. Make all the hardware connections using a breadboard, jumper wires, and voltage input. 2. Open the Arduino IDE and set up the driver for connected hardware. 3. Import the required library modules ESP8266WiFi.h and ESP8266HTTPClient.h. 4. Setup Wi-Fi network authentication and Wi-Fi server’s port number. 5. Map the General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) pins with microcontroller. 6. Wait till the Wi-Fi connection is not connected. 7. Start the server and obtain the IP address. 8. Create a HTTP Client and initialize HTTP request parameters containing sensor’s data and send to web server’s URL. 9. If the parameters are successfully received by the server, prepare the responding parameters in the HTTP response and send it back. 10. Create the Flask API using Python and Flask Framework. 11. Flask API is responsible for receiving and transmitting data to the browser. Figure 4 is showing the console output generated by the Flask framework and it is showing the effective connection with the HTTP server and generated response. Figure 5 is showing the screenshot of a web application designed to retrieve and control the status of home appliances.
The work has put forwarded the design and implementation of a Wireless Home Automation System. Comparing to other automation systems, the proposed design has reduced the latency in the system and cost of implementation. Moreover, the system provides the freedom to control the devices over browser from anywhere in the world. The web application to control the home appliances and reading sensors’ data can be further connected to any database server to store this data for future analysis. So, the work can be extended to include machine learning-based decision-maker servers that can predict the emergency and take timely actions.
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