Implementation of Low-Cost Wireless Control of Home Appliances Using Mobile Applications for Physically Challenged People

The proposed work deals with the wireless control and monitoring of home appliances using Bluetooth through a mobile application. The problems associated with the manual control of home automation are time-consuming, physical movement to operate the devices, and associated with energy wastage. To overcome these problems, the primary goal of this work is to enable the elderly and physically challenged people to complete their everyday regular tasks and remotely operate household equipment. This system is implemented with an Arduino Uno controller, an HC05 Bluetooth device, and a 4- channel relay module to control the connected devices using an Android mobile app in a smart way as well as manual control. The mobile app has been developed using the open-source MIT App Inventor2 software through low-power communication protocols called Bluetooth. The input supply is connected to the switches for manual control and the 4-channel relay is used for control from mobile apps. The Arduino controller serves to control home appliances, which receive commands from mobile devices through the Bluetooth HC05 device. The home appliances considered in this system are lights and fans. The physically challenged people can control the devices through an Android mobile application. The Arduino Uno becomes interfaced with relays to control the connected home appliances. The user can activate the loads by pressing the buttons in the Android app that sends the data to Bluetooth so that the connected devices can activate the corresponding relays. The proposed system is tested with Proteus 8.9 simulation software to ensure its validation. The Bluetooth-controlled technology not only reduces the need for human work; it also reduces control time and saves energy wastage.