State-of-the-Art Review of Energy Smart Homes

Abstract

With advancement in sensor, control, and communication technologies, homes can now be equipped with more intelligent lighting, HVAC, entertainment, and safety/security systems, as well as appliances with many advanced features, including high energy efficiency. In particular, with computers becoming an integrated part of homes and smart phones offering remote communication with home systems, we are entering a new era in the home industry, an era of smart homes. This paper presents a categorization of smart homes based on their area of focus, such as energy, information and communication, security, health, environmental, home entertainment, and domestic appliances. However, the main objective of this paper is to review different types of energy smart homes in more detail under three major groups, including homes with energy-monitoring systems, systems with control capabilities, and systems with advanced data-processing capabilities. Smart homes with energy-monitoring systems merely provide the total or granular energy-consumption data of the house by using equipment such as in-home displays, whereas systems with control capabilities also include a control unit that can send proper signals for either passive or active measures, such as appliance on/off commands. In contrast, systems with advanced data-processing capabilities include an advanced central processing unit that can provide more complicated analysis results, such as systems that are equipped with an optimization algorithm to optimize the temperature or appliance schedules based on the residents’ comfort level and energy cost. Communication networks in smart homes and associated challenges for their design are also discussed in this paper.