International Conference on Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA2017)
An Internet of Things based Prototype for Smart
Appliance Control
Aniruddha Sinha Shubham Sharma
Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Tezpur University (A Central University)
Tezpur University (A Central University), Napaam, Assam, India
Abstract— The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly being
recognized by researchers, companies and analysts all over the
world as one of the most advanced technologies that has the
capacity to revolutionize the behaviour of everything around us.
It possesses the potential to not only affect the health, safety and
productivity of billions of people but also has a major economic
impact. Inspired by the idea of “smart technologies” and “home
automation”, we propose an IoT framework with smart-sensing
based automatic appliance control. This paper presents a method
and an implementation technique for the management of smart-
appliances. A prototype has been developed and tested to verify
the efficacy of the implemented technique. The results show that
such prototypes can be influential in making home appliances
smart enough to operate only when required. The broad
application of the proposed work will lead to greater economic
benefits, in terms of increasing infrastructure intelligence, and
will also have social impacts in terms of global sustainability.
Index Terms - Internet of Things (IoT), MQTT, nodeMCU,
Eclipse Paho client, Smart Systems, Automated Appliance Control.
I. INTRODUCTION
Over the past several years, there has been an immense
increase in the use of autonomous sensing systems due to the
reduction of the on-state power consumption of the electrical
components and the spread of the wireless communication
technologies. The world is going through a dramatic
transformation from an isolated system to pervasive internet
enabled thing capable of generating, transmitting and receiving
valuable information. The next wave in the era of computing
will be outside the realm of the traditional desktop [1].
Commonly referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), is a
novel paradigm shift in IT arena. With the advancement of
technology many research projects are done based on IoT and
home automation is one of them [2].
Internet of Things (IoT) conceptualizes the idea of
remotely connecting and monitoring real world objects
(things) through the Internet [6]. When it comes to our house,
this concept can be aptly incorporated to make it smarter, safer
and automated [7]. A home which is smart, is the technology
used to make all the electronics equipment around the home
act smart or intelligent, is the technology used to make all
electronics around the home act smart or more automated that
ISBN: 978-1-5090-6471-7/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
*
M. R. Mahboob
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is to say smart home has highly advanced automatic system for
sensing the surrounding and many other function [8]. There
are so many challenges in the modern home automation such
as temperature, gas, light, fan, obstacles and human healthcare
for smart home[9].
The IoT applications can be found in various vital fields
such as: energy, health, transportation, environment, etc.
Millions of application in all these fields can work optimally
if there is a strong interconnection among IoT enabled
devices[10]. Development of IoT enabled technologies
results in a great deal of economic savings too, and
companies all over the world are investing in this technology
to make smart technologies scalable for everyone. This will
eventually result in leading a life with much more ease, when
the daunting tasks will be dealt automatically and smartly by
devices themselves.
Data acquisition and controlling smart devices based on
acquired data plays vital role in the successful implementation
of IoT applications. In recent years, many implementations for
smart home system have been in practice to make residential
buildings smart day by day. Many researches are finding
means for effective implementation and monitoring of
domestic appliances by means of low cost sensing system [11].
The implementation of web services and cloud computing in
controlling smart and intelligent home equipment has
introduced a reliable security mechanism in the field of IoT
[12]. However, from a system perspective, the realization of an
IoT network, together with the required backend network
services and devices, still lacks an established best practice
because of its novelty and complexity.
This paper offers an analysis report of a smart prototype
developed by the authors using the concept of IoT.
Accordingly, the rest of the paper is organized as follows:
Section II provides an overview of the main elements that
constitute the framework of our sensing based automated
appliance control. Section III provides a brief idea about the
main features of every hardware component and element,
including the software that is used in making the prototype.
Section IV consists of the screenshots of the user-interface
windows that were instrumental in monitoring the
performance of the prototype. Section V presents a detailed
explanation of the screenshots shown in Section IV. Section
VI gives the conclusion to the paper.
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II. METHODOLOGY

This section presents our smart-sensing based automated

appliance control IoT framework. It basically gives the
pictorial representation of the system.

A. Overall structure

The framework consists of multiple elements in order to

help the system achieve its goals. The basic skeleton structure
envisioned by us is depicted in Fig.1.

Fig. 2: Design of the complete schematic of the circuit of the prototype.

D. IoT Broker & Data Processing

This section constitutes the soul of our whole IoT

framework. It consists of a broker that works on the MQTT
(Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) protocol and receives
the data from Section 2 wirelessly over the Internet. The
Fig. 1: Complete block diagram of the working of the prototype. broker forwards the signal or data to the Data Processing end,
which is hosted at another device, perhaps a GUI or a Linux
The system is comprised of mainly four core sections, viz.
terminal or a Smartphone. The Data Processing unit hosts the
Data Acquisition, Data Communication & Recipiency, IoT
software or scripts of code that analyze the signal and
Broker & Data Processing, and Output Operations. We discuss
accordingly generate the necessary output signals. The broker
these below.
helps in successfully publishing the output signals to the
Recipient end from the Data Processing end.
B. Data Acquisition
The framework employs a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B as the
MQTT broker. As is evident from Fig. 1, Section 3 represents
The first step in making any system smart is to make the
the IoT Broker & Data Processing unit of our prototype.
real life quantities and parameters available to it, based on
which it can take smart actions. This section is responsible for
E. Output Operations
acquiring the physical values of temperature, humidity and
motion detection through mainly two sensors - the temperature
The last stage of our Smart System is its physical
and humidity DHT11 sensor, and the PIR motion sensor HC-
implementation visualized through few output operations, the
SR501. The Data Acquisition section of the prototype is
instructions for which are received after the smart analysis of
depicted in Fig. 1 as Section 1.
the input values at the Data Processing unit. As this is a small
scale implementation of the automated appliance control
C. Data Communication & Recipiency
technique, we have used two AC bulbs and a buzzer as the
output units. One AC bulb switches ON when the humidity at
The next section in this project consists of an Arduino unit
the sensing location exceeds a certain threshold and likewise,
called nodeMCU having an overhead Wi-Fi client called
the other bulb switches ON if the temperature exceeds the
ESP8266 [13]. The ESP8266 Wi-Fi module is a self-contained
predefined threshold value. The buzzer acts as an alarm to
system on chip (SoC) with integrated TCP/IP protocol stack
alert the user if a person enters the room or comes in the
that can give any microcontroller access to the Wi-Fi network.
vicinity of the sensing unit. If there is no more change in
It is an extremely cost effective board with a huge and ever
motion, the buzzer stops beeping. Similarly, once the humidity
growing community, and uses the Lua scripting language[15].
and the temperature goes below the set threshold values, each
This part of the prototype is depicted in Fig. 1 as Section 2.
of the bulbs turns OFF. This section is presented as Section 4
The main purpose of Section 2 is to measure the
in Fig. 1.
surrounding temperature, humidity and any change in motion
Fig. 2 depicts the design of the complete schematic
nearby, transfer this data wirelessly over MQTT broker to the
employed in developing the Smart System.
Processing end, receive the processed signal and control the
output operations.

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 International Conference on Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA2017)
III. PROTOTYPE SYSTEM AND SYSTEM MODELING
This section focuses on the technical specifications of the
elements used in developing the prototype of the system, i.e.,
the software and hardware used.
A. DHT11 Temperature and Humidity sensor
DHT11 temperature & Humidity Sensor features a
temperature & humidity sensor with a calibrated digital signal
output. Its exclusive digital-signal-acquisition technique, and
temperature and humidity sensing technology ensures high
reliability and excellent long term stability. The sensor
includes a resistive type humidity measurement component
and NTC (Negative Temperature Coefficient) temperature
component offering excellent quality, fast response, anti-
interference ability and cost effectiveness. It can measure
temperature from 0-50 °C with an accuracy of ±2°C and
relative humidity ranging from 20-90% with an accuracy of
±5%. The sensor provides fully calibrated digital outputs for
the two measurements [3].
B. HC-SR501 PIR Motion Sensor
Every object that has a temperature above perfect zero emits
thermal energy (heat) in the form of radiation which lies in the
infrared region. The PIR sensors are tuned to detect this IR
wavelength which only emanates when a living being arrives
in their proximity[4]. Interfacing HC-SR501 with nodeMCU is
easy as the output of the sensor is MCU friendly i.e., gives a
3.3V when HIGH and it can be powered from the 5V rail of
the MCU.
C. nodeMCU & ESP8266
In the prototype, whenever DHT11 senses any change in
temperature and/or humidity, it converts the sensed data to
digital data and sends it to nodeMCU through the pin no.
GPIO-05. Again, if HC-SR501 detects any change in motion,
it instantly sends a high signal (3.5V) to the pin GPIO-12 of
the nodeMCU. In the following steps, the sensed values i.e.
temperature, humidity and motion detection output are
published through three different topics using ESP8266. The
subscribers at the Raspberry Pi end receive the data and based
on various analyses, control signals are published to control
the appliances or the output units which are placed at the
nodeMCU end.
D. Raspberry Pi and the MQTT Broker:
In the field of Information Technology, a protocol is the
special set of rules that end points in a telecommunication
connection use when they communicate. Protocols specify
interactions between the communicating entities. MQTT is a
lightweight messaging protocol that provides resource-
constrained network clients with a simple way to distribute
telemetry information. The protocol, which uses a
publish/subscribe communication pattern, is used for machine-
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Fig. 3: General communication process in MQTT protocol.
to-machine (M2M) communication and plays an important
role in the Internet of Things (IoT) [5]. MQTT allows devices
to send (publish) information about a given topic to a server
that functions as an MQTT message broker, as shown in Fig 3.
The broker then pushes the information out to those clients
that have previously subscribed to the client's topic. To a
human, a topic looks like a hierarchical file path [14]. Should
the connection from a subscribing client to the broker get
broken, the broker will buffer messages and push them out to
the subscriber when it is back online. Should the connection
from the publishing client to the broker be disconnected
without notice, the broker can close the connection and send
subscribers a cached message with instructions from the
publisher [13].
There are many MQTT platforms available for IoT
implementations, however the most popular are the mosquitto
and the hivemq clients.
By default, the Raspberry Pi doesn’t come equipped with
the MQTT protocol and needs to be installed manually.
E. Eclipse Paho library
The Paho project was created to provide scalable open-
source implementations of open and standard messaging
protocols aimed at new, existing, and emerging applications
for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT).
Paho initially started with MQTT publish/subscribe client
implementations for use on embedded platforms, and in the
future will bring corresponding server support as determined
by the community [17]. Paho client libraries can be written in
many programming languages, viz. C, C++, Java, Python, etc.
For this project, we performed Paho client programming in C
[18].
IV. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
In this section, we demonstrate the steps in integrating the
various components of the prototype, the flow of the hardware
control scripts, and the results observed after implementation.
We describe these below.
A. Flow of the hardware control scripts
Any programming language capable of communicating
directly with controller hardware can be used. As already
mentioned, we used the C programming language enabled
with the Paho client for MQTT communication at the Data
Processing unit, while the Data Communication and
Recipiency unit, i.e. the nodeMCU was coded and made
equipped with MQTT controls using the Arduino IDE.
 International Conference on Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA2017)
Fig. 4: Program Flow diagram at the sensing end.
1) Program Structure: Applications that use the Paho
client library typically use a similar structure:
ƒ Create a client object
ƒ Set the options to connect to an MQTT server
ƒ Set up callback functions if multi-threaded
(asynchronous mode) operation is being used.
ƒ Subscribe to any topics the client needs to receive
ƒ Repeat until finished:
ƒ Publish any messages the client needs to
ƒ Handle any incoming messages
ƒ Disconnect the client
ƒ Free any memory being used by the client
2) Program Flow: The basic flowchart of the source code
at the Data Sensing unit (nodeMCU) is shown in Fig. 4 while
that at the Data Processing unit (Raspberry Pi or Ubuntu
system) is demonstrated in Fig. 5. There are mainly six MQTT
topics used in the prototype for communication :
• Arduino/temp: If the sensing element senses a change in
the surrounding temperature, it transmits the current
temperature value to the Data Processing unit through this
topic. The minimum threshold temperature value for switching
on the bulb was set to 26 °C in the prototype, as presented in
Fig. 11.
• Arduino/pir: For any change in motion in the vicinity, this
topic is used by the sensing element to send the detected
motion input to the analyzer for processing.
• Arduino/humid: The DHT11 senses the change in
humidity levels and transmits the current humidity value to the
data processing unit over this topic. The corresponding bulb
turns on if the humidity exceeds 60% RH, which was the
threshold used while testing the prototype.
• Arduino/tempAck: The data processing unit uses this topic
for sending the acknowledgement signals to the nodeMCU
after analysis of the received temperature value. If the
temperature exceeds 26 °C, a “4” is transmitted to the
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Fig. 5: Program Flow diagram at the analyzer end.
nodeMCU to switch on the corresponding bulb, else a “5” is
transmitted to either switch off the bulb or to maintain it in the
off state.
• Arduino/humidAck: The analyzer sends the output signal
for switching on or off the humidity based light bulb over this
topic. As soon as the humidity goes beyond 60% RH, the
corresponding bulb turns on and vice-versa.
• Arduino/pirAck: This topic delivers a high signal to beep
the buzzer as soon as motion is detected in a radius of 5 meters
from the PIR sensor, and vice-versa.
The flowcharts shown in Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 re-iterate until
there is a fault in MQTT connection or the Processing end is
voluntarily closed by someone. For a break in the MQTT
connection from either sides, the particular side tries to re-
connect with the broker and keeps trying till the time the
connection is successfully established.
B. Data Collection and Analysis
The data from the DHT11 sensor to the nodeMCU
contains 40 bits. The structure of these 40 bits is shown here
under:
Out of these 40 bits,
• Decimal Byte of RH, Decimal Byte of Temp. = 0
(always). Therefore, the first and third bytes of received data
actually give the numeric values of the measured relative
humidity (%) and temperature (°C).
• The last byte is the Checksum byte which is used for error
correction. If all the five bytes are transferred successfully then
the checksum byte will be equal to the last 8 bits of the sum of
the first four bytes, i.e.,
Checksum = Last 8 bits of (Integer Byte of RH + Decimal
Byte of RH + Integer Byte of Temp. + Decimal Byte of Temp.)
Whenever DHT11 senses any change in temperature and/or
humidity, it converts the sensed data to digital data and sends
 International Conference on Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA2017)
Fig. 6: Process flow of output operation in this prototype
Fig. 7: Screenshot of the terminal window at the analyzer’s end
Fig. 8: Screenshot of the dashboard window at the sensing end
it to nodeMCU through the pin no. GPIO-05. Again, if PIR
sensor detects any change in motion it instantly sends a high
signal (3.5V) to the pin GPIO-12 of the nodeMCU. This is the
method of data collection and analysis in the proposed
prototype.
C. System Operation and Dashboard screenshots
As mentioned in III, the output devices installed in this
prototype are two AC lamps and one buzzer. Fig. 6 shows the
pictorial representation of the output realization in this
prototype.
As the output of nodeMCU is a 3.3 V signal, so AC
appliances cannot be controlled by the output signal of
nodeMCU directly. To solve this problem, a circuit containing
a relay and a transistor is used. The transistor amplifies the
3.3V signal to provide adeqaute voltage to the relay for
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Fig. 9: Screenshot of the extended terminal window at
the analyzer’s end
Fig. 10: Encircled portion indicates the smart nature of the analyzer
to reconnect with the broker
operation. The pins GPIO-04 (temperature controlled output)
and GPIO15 (humidity controlled output) are used to control
the LAMP1 and LAMP2 respectively. On the other hand, the
buzzer is directly controlled by the GPIO-13 pin of the
nodeMCU.
Images in Fig. 7, Fig. 8, Fig. 9 and Fig. 10 depict the
dashboard screenshots of the interfaces that were in use during
the system operation. There are two dashboards on which the
system as well as the MQTT communication between the
clients is being monitored. The first dashboard is the terminal
window of the Raspberry Pi (Data Processing unit) and the
second dashboard is the serial monitor of the Arduino IDE
running the program on nodeMCU (the sensing unit).
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
This prototype is an automated system and developed in
such a manner to have zero human involvement unless there is
some system maintenance, either in the sensing element or the
data processing unit, or perhaps when the broker needs to be
restarted. For monitoring all such operations at every step, we
need to use few user-interfaces. Fig. 7 is the screenshot of the
terminal view of the messages received and acknowledged at
the Data Processing unit when it is started, and the MQTT
connection is established with the broker wirelessly. Once the
connection is established, it restarts subscribing to the data that
would be sent by the nodeMCU. Fig. 8 represents the serial
monitor view of the sensing end, with the messages published
and output operations received. The bottom portion also
 International Conference on Computing, Communication and Automation (ICCCA2017)
signifies how the client smartly tries to reconnect with the
broker when MQTT connection is lost. Fig. 9 is again a
continuation of the messages at the analyzer's end. The
encircled portion shows that when a humidity value equal to
62% RH is received by the analyzer on the topic
Arduino/humid, which is greater than the set threshold value
60% RH, an acknowledgement message “1” is broadcasted to
the nodeMCU over the topic Arduino/humidAck to switch on
the corresponding light bulb. The bottom portion of the image
in Fig. 10 shows the smart nature of the client to reconnect
with the broker when connection is lost in between. Fig. 11 is
a real-time image developed prototype.

VI. CONCLUSION

A framework has been successfully implemented for smart

communication between various appliances in a building or
home at a small scale. The developed prototype can be
implemented in rural areas or in agricultural applications. The
developed technique ensures energy saving as well as having
the potential to play a crucial role in informing the farmers
about the best crop to be cultivated depending on the soil
humidity or automatically distributing water to the farms as
and when required. Industries are also using such technologies
to monitor the use of every machinery and large equipment in
their campuses. However, the proposed prototype has a few
limitations that it is operational only in a closed network and is
inaccessible from outside the network. In case of connection
interruption, there is a delayed response when the nodeMCU
tries to reconnect with the MQTT broker.
With the inception of the concept of Smart Cities, in the
coming next decade India is also going to witness a revolution
in the way its cities are planned. If these prototypes are
brought to use at every home, office, government institutions,
educational institutes, etc., a city will automatically achieve
the tag of being a Smart City. Though many IT companies are
now busy in addressing interoperability issues and the
challenge of controlling hardware devices through software,
the world community is now moving towards creating
opportunity to live in a "connected life" environment.
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Fig. 11: Real-time image of the prototype developed
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