International Journal of Engineering and Technology

In recent years Intelligent Smart Home System has become one of the main applications of Wireless Sensor Networks. In this paper a low cost, low power smart home system using ZIGBEE, GSM, sensors (smoke, IR motion sensors) and RFID has been presented. ZIGBEE is a new short distance, low data rate wireless network technology. It is built on the IEEE 802.15.4 low rate wireless Personal Area Network standard. PIC16F877A controller is used in a predominant way because it is rich in peripherals and hence many devices can be interfaced at ease, it is also very cheap and can be easily assembled and programmed. The PIC controller controls the devices and sends the sensor values to the PC via ZIGBEE module. Although Bluetooth is better than ZIGBEE for transmission rate, ZIGBEE has lower power consumption. Hence, ZIGBEE is generally used for 24 hours monitoring of communication transmission systems. At the PC terminal, LABVIEW is used to control the GSM and ZIGBEE operations. The system can detect fire and theft situations and reacts accordingly by turning on the buzzer and sending alert SMS through GSM module. This system also monitors the building occupants and saves the energy by switching off certain devices like fan and lights when the room is unoccupied.