An integrated, flexible, and Internet-based control architecture for home automation system in the Internet era

In recent years, electronic appliances can be monitored and controlled by embedded microprocessors and be displayed on terminals, but they are still in lack of integration. Since the present home automation (HA) system is not equipped with efficient integration mechanism, it cannot fully manifest the worth of these developments. In order to achieve this goal of integration, many appliance manufacturers focus on the development of intelligent (or information) appliances to be integrated into a complete HA system for monitoring and controlling. Due to the advent of advanced computer and wideband network, the personal computer-based environment seems to be a very suitable platform for system integration. The personal computers can be linked by the network and are capable of powerful computation and easy display. We can take advantage of such abilities to develop an integration system.