Smart Home Control System: Systems Design, Communication Programming, and Circuit Building

Designed a smart home system and implemented in an apartment to automatically control air quiality and ambient temperature based on pre-determined settings.

Link to Final Report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16gJSaYEMOhpHEpLcUallmewDQxXjtjat/view?usp=sharing

Link to System Walkthrough Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exgQ4KA1UVI

Project Overview

We constructed a smart home control system designed to improve living conditions in student apartments by automatically regulating air quality and temperature. This system harnesses the power of ESP32 microcontrollers, which process inputs from environmental sensors like the BME680 for humidity and the Si7021 for temperature. These sensors feed data to the microcontrollers, which in turn control actuators—a linear actuator for window adjustments and an IR transceiver for a space heater—based on preset thresholds. The inclusion of TCP for inter-controller communication and cloud-based geofencing via adafruit.io enhances operational efficiency, ensuring that the system only activates when the user is within preset geoparameters. This technical setup not only optimizes comfort and energy usage but also adapits seamlessly to any living space without needing pre-existing smart infrastructure, making it an accessible and effective solution for enhancing student accommodations.

Project Industry: Manufacutring and Electrical Engineering

Project Type: Systems Design and Circuitry

Project Length: 4 months

Key Actions

• Researched ideal sensores to be used in the system based on communication protocols, power input, price, etc and calibrated sensors with ESP32 controllers to properly measure the necessary values

• Set-up actuators through reversed engineering with IR sensors and 3-D printing clamps for linear actuator

• Designed and built system to use I2C communication between sensors and microcontrollers and TCP for inter-controller comunication

• Developed geofencing features using a modified IFTTT app and cloud communication through adafruit.io to control heating systems based on the geolocation of the operator's phone

• Designed and iterated on custom circuits to fit all components and optimize curcuit efficiency

Tools Used

• MicroPython (Thonny)

• Circuitry Equipment (Multimeter, Oscilloscope, protoboards, etc.)

• 3-D Printing (SolidWorks)

• IFTTT and adafruit.io