EasyYard: An IoT-Based Smart Controller for a Connected Backyard

With many identified applications that can be automated in the smart city paradigm, the number of devices that are connected for each of these applications is increasing multi-fold. It is predicted that the number of connected devices would be in the orders of billions in the next few years. In order to address this scalability issue in the connected smart home, we propose, EasyYard, which allows the user to control lighting, read temperature, access video, and control audio within their home at their convenience using a single controller. The structure of the product is designed with scalability in mind for future expansion, from the communication protocols that are being used to the choice of microcontrollers, the whole set-up is meant to be used extensively and heavily by the users knowing the product will run all of this and more without interruption. The system was designed with a hub structure in mind. This means that the processing of individual components is distributed between sub processing structures, with all of the data then being sent to a central processing hub. The individual sub-controllers, Arduinos, communicate back and forth with the central communication system via Bluetooth sending and receiving data and commands to the central processing unit, a Raspberry Pi 3. With this structure set up, the dependency on cloud support is removed as is typical with smart and connected systems. Instead, these architectures allow for robust usability in remote locations that may not have continuous access to the internet, while still allowing the user to control the subsystems through their computer.