Smart Device Control using Alexa Application

Abstract

Home automation is becoming popular day by day due to numerous advantages. Until now, the current development shows that the home automation system is managed by Emails, texts or some other applications. However, in recent years, the field of Internet of Things (IoT) has seen significant investments made by the research community and the industry. Specifically, the Smart Home space has been a prime focus with the introduction of devices such as Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Samsung Smart Things among others. The growth of an industry results in innovative, economic, and advanced solutions. In this paper, we focus on making nonsmart homes smart and how to build a robust, costeffective system that can be widely used. We power our system using Amazon Echo, Amazon’s cloud services, its speech services. Arduino and ESP8266 are used as the hardware component for providing smart features for non-smart homes. The voice command function will be given to control any appliances or devices at home. This will provide a better communication in automated home as compared to normal homes.

Existing System

In Bluetooth based home automation system the home appliances are connected to the Arduino BT board at input output ports using relay. The program of Arduino BT board is based on high level interactive C language of microcontrollers; the connection is made via Bluetooth. The password protection is provided so only authorized user is allowed to access the appliances. The Bluetooth connection is established between Arduino BT board and phone for wireless communication. In this system, the python script is used and it can install on any of the Symbian OS environment, it is portable. One circuit is designed and implemented for receiving the feedback from the phone, which indicate the status of the device.

Proposed System

The proposed system is Voice Based Smart Home Automation using NodeMcu and AMAZON Alexa. Alexa is a device that connects to the voice controlled intelligent personal assistant service Alexa, which responds to the name "Alexa". It can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation hub. We use the Amazon echo to develop a skill (app) that will communicate with our Node-Mcu microcontroller to control our devices. Whenever we want to turn on or turn off our appliances, we ask the Amazon Echo to turn the appliance ON or OFF.

Architecture

BLOCK DIAGRAM