Today, people want to incorporate quality technological innovations into their homes. New homeowners want the the ability to turn on heaters, air conditioners, and even lights before they arrive. They want to be able to reconfigure settings from the office, their car, or anywhere else in the world. No more long waits in a cold home while the heaters warm the home. No more arriving at a sweltering or freezing home. Flexibility can be achieved by altering the lighting in a particular room, depending on how it will be used on a particular night. Convenience and a sense of safety can be gained by lighting pathways throughout the house. Also, reduced energy consumption can lead to major cost savings for a homeowner who can remotely control their home settings.

We needed to build an affordable home system for secure, remote monitoring and control capabilities in any residential home.

The Three Remote Interfaces

There are three system interfaces. The touch-tone phone interace can be used by the homeowners to call the system and change settings by responding to voice prompts. The world wide web interace allows the homeowner to access their system and change settings over the Internet via a personal computer. The last inteface, the handheld device, can be used by the homeowner to access their system and change settings via a cellular phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) with Web access

Touch-tone Phone

The user calls the system by dialing his/her home telephone number. The server PC then receives the call and plays an automated message. The user can opt to leave a message or enter a password to change home parameters. To change variable parameters, the user presses the corresponding number sequences. The server PC decodes the touch-tones and the backend software updates the parameters and Web page

Accessing Web and Handheld Interfaces

The DSWG 3000 System can work with broadband connections but is primarily designed to operate through a single analog phone line. To use the Web and handheld interfaces, the user must first call the system using a touch-tone phone and enter a sequence to make the system dial an ISP after the call has finished. This option is provided because many homeowners may prefer the graphical display and ease of use provided by these interfaces. After the user has finished updating the system, the server will disconnect from the ISP.

System Diagram

Web Interface

The user will log on with a password to the Web page associated with his/her system. After the login, the graphical interface allows the user to monitor the different places in his/her home and view their current state. Through a form-based HTML page, the user will submit any desired changes. The server PC will then decode the form and make the appropriate changes to the parameters and the Web page

Handheld Interface

The user will log on using a cellular phone or a PDA with Web access. This interface is controlled by the wireless application protocol (WAP), which is very similar to the HTML protocol except that it uses different tags to permit special devices to use the system. The WAP application will provide visual scroll down menus where the user can easily change parameters. The server PC will then decode the WAP input and make the appropriate changes to the parameters and the Web page

The Web Interface