A Novel Cost-efficient Framework for Smart Home Creation

The world has changed dramatically after the emergence of the concept of the Internet of things (IoT), which now includes billions of things, including technologies and applications. All that surrounds us has become a smart thing with an identifier with the ability to collect, process, or share data, in addition to the ability to access and control it from anywhere at any time. Smart homes are one of the most important applications of the IoT, which has enabled users to monitor and control their homes remotely. Besides, this has resulted in saving energy, which would otherwise be wasted. In addition, Smart Home provides automated services that do not require user intervention, which is known as the machine-to-machine relationship. This research presents an innovative method to employ old personal computers as central computing units with a simple control circuit which can be designed locally, in addition to a small application for controlling in some devices based on an internet connection and web application. The proposed system is capable of transforming ordinary homes into smart homes without significant costs. The proposed method will enable users to remotely control their home devices (to turn on and off), and track the status of these devices, in addition to some smart services. To demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed system, we implemented the main functions with the hardware circuit. The results are very encouraging in terms of reliability, ease of use, and to significantly lower the costs compared to the existing commercial systems.