Smart Home Automation using ESP8266 and Internet of Things

Sarishma Sushant Chamoli Dr. Sumitra Sangwan

Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Assistant Professor
Graphic Era Deemed to be Graphic Era Hill University KTGC Ratia
University, Dehradun, India Dehradun, India Fatehabad, Haryana
sarishmasingh@gmail.com chamolisushant@gmail.com cksummi@gmail.com

Vivudh Fore
Assistant Professor,
Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya, Haridwar, India
vivdh.fore@gmail.com

Abstract—By means of using the latest technologies such as cloud
computing, Internet of Things, embedded systems etc. this paper
proposes a working model for smart home automation. The
advancement in field of information technology has led to
numerous practical applications which can help the humans to
lead a better life where regular chores can be handled via
wireless communications instead of practical effort. The
proposed model is projected as one of the cheapest ways available
to automate a home and transform it into a smart home using
ESP8266 microcontroller. The model provides a mechanism to
remotely monitor and control the home devices by using a user
interface which will be interlinked to Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud (EC2). The paper provides a background of the enabling
technologies along with the proposed model. The paper concludes
by providing the result of implementation and its challenges.
Keywords-Cloud computing; Internet of Things; Embedded
systems; ESP8266; Microcontroller; Amazon Elastic Compute
Cloud.
I. INTRODUCTION
The advancement in the field of information technology
and computer science has crossed many hurdles and has
currently reached a threshold whereby low cost, power
efficient small computational devices are made available and
used at almost every domain of practical knowledge. There has
been quite a revolution in use of small devices after the
introduction and shift of addresses [1] to Internet Protocol
version 6. IPv6 provides a 128 bit unique address to a device in
contrast to the earlier 32 bit address which limited the address
space and thus limited the number of devices which can have
unique addresses. The use of IPv6 enhanced the practical use
of low power, low memory, small computational devices; more
commonly known as sensors. The use of sensors [2] provided
the user with enormous amounts of data which it sensed from
its environment.
Soon sensors were customized [2] to monitor and report
specific information rather than general purpose information
for example, the smoke sensor started to report the smoke
sensed, the temperature sensor began noticing the temperature.
Presently many types of sensors are available in the market
which are customized to work and report various types of
environment related information. The deployment of these
sensors accompanied by suitable communication protocols and
an interface to process and make meaning or use of all of that
data has led to the development of a new paradigm commonly
referred to as Internet of Things (IoT) [3].
Many new technologies have also developed during
this phase of advancement. One of these is called as cloud
computing which aims at providing computing as a service to
its users [4] i.e. using the internet to deliver the results of
computation to users where the user is not concerned about the
geographical locality of the resources. Using these, we can
easily use the sensors to automate any domain we need to. In
this paper, we primarily focus on the use of sensors to
transform a home into a smart home which is capable of taking
decisions on its own and can also be monitored or controlled as
per the user.
The proposed model is validated as the one which
includes minimum cost overhead and is very easy to deploy as
well. Rest of the alternatives in the market costs a normal user
around 10 to 100 times more than the one we have proposed.
The use of ESP8266 microcontroller as an embedded system
provides a far cheaper alternative. It is very low cost WiFi
microchip having complete TCP/IP stack being manufactured
by Espressif Systems, a Shanghai based company [5] and
works in the same way as a normal microcontroller would.
The paper begins by a brief introduction of the
enabling technologies which have been used to make the
proposed system work. This is followed by a detailed

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3701427

description of our model. The results and implementation are smaller and compact, aimed specifically at providing some
then presented followed by the conclusion. dedicated service only.

II. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

Many concepts and technologies are amalgamated so as to
make a complete model for smart home automation. Some of
these concepts are briefly explained below:
A. Wireless Sensor Networks
It comprises of a set of distributed small computational
devices which interact with one another so as to monitor the
environmental as well as physical conditions of their
surroundings [6]. The key to their popularity lies in the fact that
it allows its users to have a large number of low cost and low
power computational devices which constantly assist in a better
service delivery with minimum overhead. The working of a
WSN is assisted by means of communication protocols for
instance, ZigBee, IEEE 802.15.4 etc.
B. Cloud Computing
It has served as the most dynamic and useful of all the
paradigm shifts in the information technology which we have
witnessed [12]. This technology enables the user to access
computational resources and their associated services over the
internet by simply using a user interface to interact with. It has
eliminated the need of having a bulk of resources at the
disposal of user’s end, which in turn lead to pooling of
resources. This enabled more utilization of resources and thus
provided a far more cheaper online service in comparison to
the one received via traditional means [4].
C. Communication protocols
These serve as the backbone for any model which needs to
communicate with distributed objects or devices. These allow
the communication or data to be exchanged between different
devices or units. In our model also, many distributed devices
will come together to share their information, so that the
overall result is up to the expectations of the user.
III. PROPOSED SYSTEM
Internet of Things can be used to cater to many varied
domains such as home, environment, safety, health, logistics,
industry etc. We propose a solution to provide a low cost,
efficient and reliable model which can transform our home into
a smart home in no time along with providing a mechanism to
manage the devices deployed in the home. The proposed
system uses some key components which are described as:
A. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
It is a platform which provides the cloud computing services on
behalf of Amazon Web Services [8]. Users can simply go and
rent the virtual machines for as long as they want to use the
service, after which the machine is either shut down or is
destroyed depending upon the user and its future requirement.
It allows scalability and reliability to the users along with a
control over the geographical locations of the machines.
B. Arduino Uno
It is a microcontroller board equipped with multiple pins
(analog and digital) based on the ATmega328P [9]. The board
comprises of 6 analog pins along with 14 digital pins and is
programmed using Arduino Integrated Development
Environment using a type B cable. This board can be powered
using a 9 volt battery or via a USB cable. As a precaution, the
RST, ch_pd is connected to a 3.3V (Vcc) so that it works in a
normal mode.

D. Embedded systems
It resembles a normal computer system comprising of a set of
hardware and software which are dedicated to perform some
tasks [7]. However, an embedded system is designed in a way
that it works and provides only some specific service or task. A
microprocessor or microcontroller, memory, networking
devices, input / output devices and some storage are the key
requirements to make an embedded system work. It can be Figure 1. Arduino Uno pin configuration [9]
considered as general purpose system but in contrast is much

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3701427

C. Message Queuing Telemetry Transport
It is a ISO standard based light weight communication
protocol which works on publish-subscribe model [10]. It is
specifically designed to work in resource constrained
environments and allows communication between remotely
located devices. The devices communicating via MQTT
generally have very limited processing power and memory.
The publish-subscribe model comprises of a publisher, broker
and consumer.
D. ESP8266 Microcontroller
It is a cheaper form of a WiFi chip manufactured by a
Shanghai based firm. It contains complete TCP/IP stack along
with the capability to function like a microcontroller. It is used
in our system to act as a microcontroller to which every device
will be connected and will act as a node or router of
communication between the cloud and the sensors.
E. ThingSpeak
It is an open source application developed specifically for
use with the Internet of Things [11] concept whereby different
things or sensors or devices can store and retrieve data from it
by using a communication protocol. It provides services such
as mobility tracking, updates on data, logging applications etc.
Figure 2: ThingSpeak representing itself as cloud interface [11]
The proposed model dictates that there will be multiple
distributed sensors placed all across the house. Each sensor
will be dedicated to some purpose or the other depending upon
the demands of the user. The model enables the user to control
and monitor these devices from any remote location possible
[15].
Three key requirements are there to make it working and
running. One is arduino uno which is a microcontroller as
explained above. The second one is a Wi-Fi module in the form
of ESP8266. The third is the portable mobile phone which can
easily act as a router.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3701427
The ESP8266 is to be plugged into a 3.3V separate power
supply or into the 3.3V pin of the arduino uno [17]. We have
plugged it into the arduino 3.3V pin in the model. Along with
this, the Rx and Tx of arduino are connected with the Rx and
Tx of the ESP8266. Here the pin 3 is used as Rx and pin 2 is
used as Tx. By default the baud rate of ESP8266 is 115200,
which needs to be adjusted to nearly 57600 for our model. This
can be adjusted or altered using the command AT +
UART_DEF = 57600,8,1,0,0.
IV. IMPLEMENTATION
Arduino uno contains a .ino file which is used for
programming. Arduino will receive all the information
gathered by the sensors and it will be acting according to the
information received by it. This model allows the use of any
computing device with a working internet connection to
monitor and control the pins of the arduino which will be
located at home whereas the device can be located anywhere
geographically. For instance, the led lights can be turned on by
using H representing High or they can be turned off by using L
which represents Low for the application programming
interface. The commands used to operate the channel are given
below.
Figure 3: Commands to operate the channel
The GET request can be used to express the value of field1
by writing the details of the URL in any type of supported
browser. The data entered in filed1 is read by using arduino
uno and then different commands are shot up for generating
commands such as, turn the fan on/off. A request “Get channel
field” is sent using ESP8266 as well as arduino uno.
V. RESULTS AND CHALLENGES
After practically deploying the model for the smart home
automation, a user interface was also designed which enabled
the user to choose what he/she wants to monitor or operate
upon. The following screenshots of the interface represents
that. The sensors used in automation are DHT11/22 [14]
Temperature and Humidity sensor having 4 pins. It uses
capacitive humidity sensor and then generate a digital signal to
the corresponding data pin. The first is for power supply,
second acts as a data pin, third is a no connection pin, lastly
fourth one is connected to ground. These sensors are deployed
at different locations in the home from where they sense the
data, publish it to the broker and then it read by the
subscribers.
Figure 4: Interface screenshots
There are many challenges which need addressing before the
smart home automation really becomes a common market
practice. The first and foremost challenge is the security and
privacy concern whereby any virtual user may hack the system
and unlock the home or can also access the personal data about
the user [16][17]. Moreover in cases when a router is
vulnerable, the whole system becomes vulnerable to attacks.
Secondly, only integration of things won’t simply solve the
problem. There needs to be a considerable level of integration
before they start to work in a complete and comprehensive
manner.[18]-[22] The deployment of Internet of Things setup
at home should also be accompanied by a comprehensive study
guide for the owner of the house so that he or she can know
what all is going on in their house. Lastly, most important
requirement for a smart home to function is the availability of
an internet connection. [23]-[27]
VI. CONCLUSION
There have been many breakthroughs in development of
technologies in the past few years. The use of Internet Protocol
version 6 allowed the deployment of millions of cheap sensors
which turned out to be affordable to the users. This paper takes
advantage of this sensor based wireless technology along with
the services provided by the Amazon cloud in order to create a
smart home automation system. The system is among the
cheapest and the most efficient way as per the market survey,
to transform your home into a smart automated home. It can
control as many as 8 devices by using a single module and the
corresponding cost will hardly cross the INR 1000. The paper
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3701427
details out the proposed system by defining the functionality of
its modules and used components, followed by its
implementation, results and some associated challenges.
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