IoT-based Smart Switch Board System for Home Appliances Control

Over the years, IoT has gained importance in a way to create ‘smart objects’ with embedded sensing, actuation, computation, communication capabilities to share information and provide value-added services to an end user. Smart Home technology with IoT is greatly on the rise as it promises to provide comfort living with optimal use of resources in a secured environment. This paper proposes the design and implementation of smart switch board control system for local/remote switch control of home appliances/devices in a room through the dedicated web-based control application accessible over the internet. Using the standard Ethernet integrated with embedded controller and programmable interactive switch board, the system allows the authentic remote user to control the ON/OFF switch operation of room devices such as lights, fans, heater, cooler, mobile charger etc. as well as speed-control of fan through the graphically designed web-application with unique IP address. The current status of the room appliances is also refreshed on the remote panel following the bi-directional communication over the network. The continuous real-time performance of the system prototype, tested under different operational modes using web-application on home server or mobile phone, was satisfactory and reliable. The system, was able to accurately and timely operate and update status of multiple devices remotely with no false indication and negligible time lag of 2-3s. Compatible with existing home devices, the proposed system is a low cost IoT version of room switch board that enhances the comfort level of occupants to remotely operate the home appliances and thus save electricity.