Our proposed system “Smart Home Monitoring System” will solve people’s most important problems about their houses, which are convenience, security and mobility. In today’s unsafe world, people mainly concern about their houses’ security. There are many threats for houses. A burglar may rob the house or a fire may occur and the house can burn. Our system solves these problems and provides an overall protection. In the past, people were able to control their houses only when they were inside them. However, our system enables people to control their houses from anywhere on the world where the Internet access is available. This ability increases both convenience and mobility.

The “Smart Home Monitoring System” is equipped with cameras and smoke sensors. House owners will be able to watch specific places of their house such as saloon and child bedroom. They will no more have to worry about the cleaner or babysitter of their children as they will be able to monitor them whenever they want and the cleaner and the babysitter will be aware that they are monitored. Moreover, house owners will be informed when one of the smoke sensors detects an event. Our system will enable most features of the houses to be controlled from anywhere outside and inside the house. For example, house owners will be able to turn on or off the heating system which will provide both convenience and economy. People will also be able to control electronic devices at home, windows or doors from outside. This will provide mobility to the house owners.

2. Analysis:

“Smart Home Monitoring System” provides all the features that prior smart home systems have. General smart home systems’ features can be grouped into two. These are security features and convenience features. Like most of the smart home systems, our system protects the house from all of the possible threats. The house is monitored by cameras and house owners can watch their homes when they are away. When the motion sensors detect an unauthorized entry or smoke sensors detect an event, the system quickly informs the house owners and the responsible authorities. Furthermore, there are lots of convenience features. Heating system can be controlled from the outside or it can be configured to preserve the house at a desired temperature. Lights can be turned on or off. Brightness of the lights can even be adjusted. House owners can see whether the windows or doors are open or closed. Smart home systems have also features for the kitchen. These are the advantages of current smart home systems.

However, they are still not enough to fulfill the needs of customers and they do not provide full functionality. We propose new features that will make house owners lives easier. One major disadvantage of current smart home systems is that they cannot be customized. Not all house owners use the same features frequently. Some people use heating system features frequently where as the others changes or modifies the heating system rarely. Most frequent feature should be easy to reach and these features depend on users’ preferences. In our proposed system, house owners will be able to customize the graphical user interface of their smart home systems. Most frequently used features will be easier to reach than less frequently used features. Moreover, they will be able to shape the menus. We also provide additional features for house owners who have garden at their homes. House owners will be able to control the irrigation system by using “Smart Home Monitoring System”. Finally, they can record their favorite TV shows whenever and wherever they want by just configuring their “Smart Home Monitoring System”.

3. Soft System Methodology:

3.1 Rich Picture

3.2 Root definitions

The Smart Home Monitoring System (SHMS) provides increased security by means of the integrated sensors and cameras in order to watch for the babysitter or the cleaner, detect burglars or fire, and inform the user, police, or fire department when necessary.
SHMS provides convenience by the means of remote controls of the electronic devices in order to give the ability of controlling the electronic devices such as turning the heating system or the oven on or off, recording a TV show with the video to the user or irrigating their gardens (for houses with gardens). The system also detects the guests and informs the users about them by taking messages and capturing images of the guests in order to provide information to the users about what is going on around their house.
The SHMS also provides mobility to its users by the means of Internet access as giving them the chance of controlling everything about their houses from anywhere they want.

3.3 CATWOE Test

Security:

C householder

A Smart House Monitoring System (SHMS)

T security problems à a full secured house

W the ability to observe and detect dangers or threats inside the house (such as the behaviors of the babysitter & cleaner or detection of fire & burglary)

O householder

E integrated sensors and cameras

Convenience:

C householder

A SHMS

T a house with electronic devices à a convenient control mechanism

W the ability of controlling the electronic devices at the house from outside the house (such as turning the heating system on before arriving at home or turning off the oven when you have forgotten to do so)

O householder

E the remote controls adjusted for web access

Mobility:

C householder

A SHMS

T a house à mobile control of the house

W the chance of controlling everything inside the house from anywhere outside the house

O householder

E internet access

3.4 Level 0 Conceptual/Activity Model

4. Task Analysis:

Easy Tasks:

The user wants to see some status information of the house. User will use the system to access some basic status information about the house such as current temperature, energy cost of the current lighting setup and so on.

Moderate Tasks:

The user wants to adjust the temperature for the house by using the system’s temperature setup control.
The user wants to see who visited the house when the user was away. User will use the system’s message recording unit in order to view the messages of the visitors of the house.

· Difficult Tasks:

o The user wants to determine a specific channel to record the current broadcast on the channel. The user will use the system in order to select the channel to be recorded, determines the hour to start the recording, how long the recording will last.

5. Suggested Solution:

5.1 Functionality

“Smart Home Monitoring System” is a combination of services that provides automation control over people’s houses. People will no more have to worry about their homes. The system will always keep the house under control and take the necessary actions in case of an unexpected situation. The system protects the house from both natural events such as fire and social threats like burglars. The system is equipped with smoke and motion sensors and digital cameras. Almost all electrical devices at home are controlled by the system and house owners can control or monitor their homes from wherever they want via “Smart Home Monitoring System”. The system has HTTP server support that enables mobility. Window, door and light statuses are monitored by the system and users can see whether they are open, closed or on, off. Lights can be turned on or off and their brightness can be adjusted. Curtains can be controlled. In addition, entertainment system can be used. These are just a small subset of features that “Smart Home Monitoring System” provides. In conclusion, our system provides an interface to control the house either inside or outside the house.

5.2 User Interface

Our solution will provide an effective and user-friendly user interface. It will be easy for all kind of users to do the actions they want. The main screen that comes after logging in to the SHMS server will display not only the subject tabs, such as tabs for security operations, heating system operations, gardening operations and so on, but also some general information users may want to see frequently, such as date, time, air temperature and whether the alarm system is on or off. According to the process user wants, he/she clicks to the related subject tab and a detailed menu will then appear. From this detailed menu, he/she can select the specific process. Some user interface patterns such as combo boxes, radio buttons or checklists will be available in order to make the users work simple and effortless.

Moreover, we are planning to provide speed and easiness to the users of this system. For this purpose, there will be some shortcut buttons on the screen. From these buttons, users will be able to log off, get help or change the house mode (house modes are some system settings that user frequently uses) easily. Also, the default subject tab that will be opened at the beginning will be the Favorites tab from where user can quickly reach the operations which he /she uses regularly. Users will be able to add or remove operations to his/her favorite operations list.

Using our system, the house owners will be able to observe their houses using the integrated cameras. In these observation screens, user will be able to rotate the cameras or zoom in/out simply by clicking the provided buttons.

5.3 Example Scenarios

1) Berk wants to observe the babysitter from his work. He enters the SHMS server and logins to the system through a web browser. SHMS menu, which shows all the tabs including all functionalities, opens. Berk selects the Security tab from this menu and chooses the “Baby Room”. In this window, Berk sees the all cameras and he selects the first camera to watch the baby room. He watches the room from different views for controlling the behavior of the babysitter. He does not notice any bad behavior of the babysitter. He exits the baby room camera and goes back to the security menu.

2) Mustafa realizes that he will miss his favorite TV show while he is at work. He decides to capture the show with his video recorder. Entering the SHMS server and logging into the system, he opens the main menu. Viewing all of the features that system offers, he selects the Entertainment tab. From there he selects the recording feature and sets the time and the channel for recording. When the time comes, television turns on and video recorder starts recording Mustafa’s favorite TV show.

3) Arda realizes that when he goes on a vacation, he uses the same features of the system. So he decides to customize a new personal setting for the system. So from the web server, he logs in to the system by typing his username and password. The main menu appears and he selects the “Settings” tab. Sub menus of the “Settings” option, are shown center of the page. He clicks “Create a New House Mode” option. A new window appears which asks Arda, how he wants to customize the mode. In this window, he enters the name of the mode, sets the heating, lighting and some other options. After he decides all functionalities, he clicks the “Add” button. System saves these properties with the house mode name that Arda specified. From now on, Arda can easily set this mode from the combo box which is located at the top of the main menu.

5.4. Drawing of Proposed Interfaces

6. Group Members

Name	Id	Email	Role
Mustafa Yasir Arslan	20301541	yarslan@ug	Analysis, Tasks, Functionality
Arda Atali	20302671	atali@ug	Soft System Methodology, Sketches
Berk Atikoglu	20300744	batik@ug	Problem and Solution Overview, Analysis, Functionality
Fatma Sirin Koru	20300238	fkoru@ug	Scenarios, Tasks, Sketches
Yuksel Ulgen	20302453	yulgen@ug	Scenarios, Conceptual Analysis, Sketches