IOT Application in Smart Homes and Smart Cities
The two most prospering domains with the help of the internet of things are smart homes and smart cities. Iot in smart homes and smart homes is increasing an urbanised world and improving energy efficiency.
Smart homes
Smart homes connect the devices and home appliances together in order to improve efficiency. These interconnect devices under one roof such as geysers, ovens, smart TVs, thermostats and allow communication between the devices.
IoT connects these devices to the internet and these devices constantly send and receive information about the surroundings. The devices send the data to giant cloud servers mostly via IoT gateways. Smart homes allow users to remotely monitor their devices via mobile applications. Applications of smart homes also include home security systems, smart thermostats and smart refrigerators.
Smart homes cities integrate with the entire cities by creating and controlling a network.
Smart thermostats
The Smart homes include thermostats that are capable of sensing and controlling the temperature. This controls the flow.
Location-based smart devices
Smart devices can track your location and instantly send messages to other devices to operate. For example, your smart thermostats can track your location from a smart car and switch on the ACs before you arrive
Voice-enabled devices
These devices can interpret human voices and convert these into text that is interpreted by the machines. Machines then perform the necessary task. Examples include alexa and siri.
Smart security systems
Security systems that are made using IOT use features such as facial recognition, iris scanners and other security modes.
Facial recognition
This is one of the most propelling uses of the IoT. facial recognition models track the features of the face such as the yes, noses, chin and lips to predict the output of the person. Based on the accuracy the machine is further trained or sent for development.
Motion detection
Similar to facial detention but here the sensors record the movements or changes on the surroundings. These behavioural changes are then sent to the model for further analysis.
Biometric access control
Biometrics have become the backbone of any organisation’s security systems. They are easy to manage and hassle-free. The employees and the staff members simply record their thumb or iris impressions on arrival and the machine marks their attendances. This model saves time and cost.
Benefits for smart homes
Smart homes allow you to add improvised functionality into regular homes. These make lives easier. For instance, smart vacuums clean up your entire home when you are away and smart refrigerators stock up your fridge and manage your die charts. Smart homes offer security, stability, flexibility and peace of mind.
Challenges in smart home systems
- Although there is no doubt that smart homes immensely make the lives of humans easier. It comes with the following challenges
- It becomes difficult to integrate the system when each one of the IoT devices is sold by different vendors
- Many times the IOt devices are not compatible with each other. Each of the devices must be connected to the WiFi in addition to being connected to devices such as Google Assistant.
- The prices of setting up smart homes are highly expensive and so the customers may not prefer to make such a hefty investment when regular homes just work fine without IoT.
- Security is still a big threat in smart homes. Smart homes must have a powerful farewell in order to avoid system hacking
Smart city
The internet of things technology allows smart cities to stay connected worldwide. Smart cities are driven by technology to make smart cities more safer, modern and reliable. It leads to a boost in the economy.
Smart cities include services, devices and technology that work with IoT. These offer services to improve water, electricity, roads, transportation, public areas, buildings and digital services such as broadbands. These replace regular machines with smart machines that contain sensors to sense and collect data and actuators generate efficient responses on the basis of the data incoming from sensors.
Smart cities make the lives of the citizens more comfortable and easy. Smart cities with traffic sensors have decreased road accidents and deaths to a large extent.
Features of smart cities
1. Smart water management
Smart eater management uses the internet of things to gain access to real-time information about the water systems and the water bodies. This allows humans to better manage their water resources and their requirements.
2. Smart lighting
Smart lighting contains sensors that can sense when the night falls and automatically switch on the street lighting. These sensors can also sense when the sun comes and they automatically switch off. Smart lighting also is capable of reaching with the help of solar energy.
3. Smart traffic management
Smart traffic management integrates with smart cities in order to better control and manage traffic in the cities. It offers different routes to regulate the traffic and it sends help quickly in case of a road incident. These systems are in constant contact with the traffic police and deliver the officers with real-time updates.
4. Smart parking
Smart parking is a technology that makes use of a combination of efforts by iOt devices and humans. This allows drivers to locate empty spots in parking areas, detect the cars around them and alert the drivers in case they are blocking someone elses driveways.
5. Smart waste management
Smart waste management involves the use of sensors that detect full garbage bins to notify the city authorities. These management systems collect and store data over the course of years to create better drinking routes and reduce the cost of operation.
6. Smart policing
Smart policing is one of the important features of smart cities. It involves the use of IOT based technologies to manage the citizens of the city. These technologies collect data about the cities in order to better manage the city. For example, cameras in local areas can provide data about the areas with more burglary cases in order for the police to take the next step of actions.
Benefits of Smart Cities
Smart cities have revolutionized the lives of communities. Sensors can now sense the percentage of pollutants in the air. Sensors send data about the traffic in a locality to manage the city.
Smart homes in smart cities
Smart homes in smart cities are going to become a much more common occurrence as housing is one of the most important features of any city.
These are capable of reducing the cost of living and the cost of construction. As we move into the near future we are likely to notice that smart homes connect to smart cities to provide further benefits to the entire city. These may sound like an alien topic to discuss as of now. But as the year moves by and the technology develops into a higher level we are likely to notice inter-connected smart cities and smart homes on a wider scale and network.
IoT Smart homes for smart citizens
A city with smart homes does not necessarily mean expensive houses with tight security. However, it is necessary to have some security on personal and public networks so the city is safe from crimes such as theft.
By ensuring devices are protected we ensure the fundamental growth of the city. We can monitor our personal assets remotely and this is all possible due to the internet of things. Smart homes help in saving time and costs for example thermostats manage the temperature of your home and control your expenses. Similarly, if we apply this concept on a city level we can reuse and save energy to a much larger extent.
Smart cities are much safer. These include smart traffic control, pollution control, smoke detectors, security cameras near every public area, and so on. Smart security systems reduce crime rates in any city by a large percentage.
Smart homes with IoT technology create a much easier and helpful living space for their residents. Cities become safer and easier to control. Smart cities contain responsible and dutiful citizens and residents.
Summary
In this article, we learnt about smart cities and smart homes which are some of the applications of IOT – internet of things. We hope our explanation was easy to understand.