Mobile App Based Ultra Low Cost Home Security Solution

Worldwide leader in universal control and sensing technologies wanted to develop a mobile app based ultra low cost IoT system with associated gateway and cloud application for securing homes against fire, flood and freeze.

Solution Description

Gadgeon architected the complete system including iOS and android mobile application, hub, backend cloud application and browser UI application.
Easy to use mobile app for managing the hubs, receiving the notifications and control the actuators like thermostat and valves
Simple and reliable gateway/hub for securing homes against fire, flood and freeze
Robust backend cloud application for managing users, hubs, sensors/actuators and handling real time notification via text messages, emails and push notifications.
The complete system was developed to handle millions of gateways while keeping the overall cost of the individual gateways at minimum

Outcome and Benefits Delivered

Homeowners would receive notifications if there was a water (flood), temperature (freeze), or fire (smoke detector) event and can take timely action to prevent occurrence of a catastrophic event
In the case of flood or freeze events, the home owner can take action from their mobile app by shutting of the water valves and thermostat
Installing the system may allow home owner rebate on a portion of their homeowners insurance policy cost
Heavily optimized solution to reduce number of messages and cost
This ultra-low cost home security solution provided convenience, ease of use, and user friendly UI to home users
User experience provided through the mobile app through intuitive UI, was well received by the user community

The Business Context and Challenges of the Customer

The customer is a universal leader who offers sensors and products in a range of sub-gig frequencies for the professional market, Home Automation and DIY market. The companies/users that purchase the sensors and products from the customer were looking for hubs that can work with these sensors. They needed a “sub-gig frequencies sensors + Z-Wave enabled” hub for applications where the users want to have installed Z-Wave products like thermostats and lighting controls.
In addition, there are opportunities in HVAC, DIY, Home Automation, Insurance, and the remediation market for an easy to install hub + sensor kit that allows the homeowner to monitor flood/freeze and fire events via a simple to use app.
Hence the customer wanted to develop a gateway which can easily connect with the sensors and wanted to keep the hardware cost and the running cost at minimum. The customer will be offering this product as a combination of IoT Gateway + few sensors. Moreover, selling an IoT Home gateway to customers who are looking for a low-cost hub to use with existing products allows the customer to push more sensors/products into the marketplace.

The Solution / System Description

Gadgeon architected the complete system including the gateway, iOS /Android mobile application, backend cloud application and browser UI application.
The complete solution included:
- Easy to use mobile app for managing the hubs, receiving the notifications and control the actuators like thermostat and valves
- Simple and reliable gateway/hub for securing homes against fire, flood and freeze
- Robust backend cloud application for managing users, hubs, sensors/actuators and handling real time notification via text messages, emails and push notifications.
The complete system was developed to handle millions of gateways while keeping the overall cost of the individual gateways at minimum
With this solution:-
- The homeowner would receive notifications if there was a water (flood), temperature (freeze), or fire (smoke detector) event. By receiving notification early, they can thus take action and prevent a catastrophic event.
- In the case of flood or freeze events, the home owner can take action from their mobile app by shutting of the water valves and thermostat
- Installing the system may allow home owner rebate on a portion of their homeowners insurance policy cost

System Description

The Solution / System Description

We developed a simple and reliable mobile application-based home security solution. This involved development of iOS & Android mobile apps, hardware design & development of firmware for the hub, Web UI and backend cloud server application
The details of the solution are given below:-

Mobile Application: iOS & Android

Mobile app alerts users of the events using APNS and FCM push notifications. Whenever the users receive alert notifications, they can control valves and thermostats remotely, by sending commands using this app.
The app also helps the user to set up the hub and sensors/actuators by guiding through each step of the installation process.
It communicates directly with hub over Wi-Fi for initial configuration. REST API calls are used in this process
Various technologies and services used includes the following:
- MVC architecture
- Real-time notifications using APNS and FCM
- REST API for direct configuration of the Hub
- Followed the recommended design patterns from Apple and Google.

Hub/Gateway:

Gadgeon designed an ultra low cost gateway based on MT7688 chipset capable of running OpenWRT Linux. This gateway supports ethernet and Wi-Fi interfaces for communication with home router. It supports 433MHz radio and Z-wave for sensor communication.
433MHz based sensor nodes detect events like fire, flood and freeze and communicate that to the gateway/hub. The gateway/hub informs the event to the cloud which notifies the users through the companion mobile application.

Cloud Application:

Cloud server hosted in Amazon. The hub will intimate the events to cloud via MQTT (AWS IoT) protocol. The cloud will intimate the event details to the users via Text, email or push notification
AWS SNS, AWS SES and FCM services are used for notification. REST APIs (AWS API Gateway) is used to communicate cloud and mobile apps.
Microservice architecture using AWS Lambda, is used as a server less compute service that runs code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources required. Amazon DynamoDB, AWS S3 and ElastCache are used for Data and cache management. The application followed the security practises to ensure a highly secure system using various services like IAM, Certificate Manager etc.
Angular based web application hosted on AWS S3 is used as Administrator UI. It has the functionalities of user and hub management, firmware upgrade etc. The entire cloud server application is architected properly to optimize the cost without compromising the security and scalability.

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