Peer-to-Peer Overlay Gateway Services for Home Automation and Management

Recent advances in home networking devices and the increase in users connected to the internet, has allowed "home automation" to gain more attention. Home automation is the process of accessing and controlling home devices from remote locations across the Internet. Today, modern technology has reached a point in which computing devices are common in every facet of our life. We encounter numerous electronic devices within the home and office environment, as well as in public spaces such as shopping centres and airports. Computer technology and networking surround us wherever we are. We routinely use computer-based devices in our daily lives ranging from home appliances such as TVs, PCs, and Audio/Video devices to office appliances such as PDAs, and printers. All of these devices are physically located in different locations. Whilst networking has increased the opportunity to transfer data between devices, the process often remains intricate and unintuitive requiring careful configuration. In this paper we propose an architecture for accessing and controlling networked appliances in this way. We present a scenario to demonstrate our architecture showing how it can help in arranging daily home visit jobs such as engineer visits, receiving postal deliveries and so on, enabling the user to communicate with an engineer or postman while they are away from home.