How a smart home can be a safer home
Security is one of the things we value most in our homes. A home is somewhere to feel safe, protected from the harms of the outside world. As a result, we tend to invest a lot of money in security features like well-locked doors, alarms, and cameras.
Most of the tools we use to keep our homes safe are decades or even centuries old. Can smart technology and automation help make our homes even safer? In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the ways you can use automation and other tools to keep your smart home as secure as possible.
Smart home security
There are lots of ways you can harness technology to improve the security of your home, such as:
- Smart doorbells with attached cameras, which can film the person ringing your doorbell at any given time and transmit the video to your smartphone. This helps you quickly register who is at your door and alert you to any suspicious behavior, even when you’re not at home.
- Smart alarm systems that use sensors to monitor movement around your home and send alerts to your phone. These can also use camera footage to record any suspicious activity.
- Smart locking features that allow you to open your doors using a digital keypad or even an app on your phone.
Project examples
Let’s take a look at some smart home security projects from the Arduino community.
Auto-locking door
Arduino member Jayesh Naweni wanted to build a password-based door locking system. The project involved creating a keypad where you can enter the password and unlock the door without the need for carrying any keys.
This type of project is very simple to get started, requires only a few materials, and can be done by someone with a beginner-level understanding of programming.
Home automation and security system
Hussien Mohamed and Ahmed Ismail built this home automation and security system with 1Sheeld.
The project works by using a sensor which detects movement outside the door of your home. When it picks you up, an LED will switch on and you’ll be required to say a specific, pre-set password to gain access. If it’s correct, this will trigger another LED and a music player and you will be permitted to enter. If you say the wrong password, a buzzer will sound and the camera will capture a photo of you (or your intruder) and post it on Twitter.
This system also helps keep the home safe by detecting if the water and gas in your kitchen pass a certain threshold. If so, you’ll receive an alert on your phone and the fan will be turned on to push gas out of the home.
IoT home security model
Aaron Kow built this entire IoT security model as the final year project submission during his last year of engineering at University. It’s designed to be remotely accessible from any smart device or PC, enabling you to quickly stay on top of the security of your entire home.
The project relies on multiple sensors set up throughout the house. When the system is activated, any harmful activities taking place will be detected and a message alert will be sent to the homeowner.
On top of this, data collected by the sensors will be stored in the cloud and displayed on a website via a custom web-based application. This allows you to monitor any suspicious activity that takes place in real time. The project also features access control technology using the “near field communication” approach that can recognize trusted individuals with the right to enter the house.
Create a safer home with Arduino
Smart homes are often safer homes. It’s fairly straightforward to build simple home security systems, drawing on technologies like automation and the cloud to detect intruders, alert you to any suspicious activity, and make it easier for you to protect your home and the people in it.
Arduino’s products can help you do this, and it doesn’t take long to learn the basics and start putting together your own cloud projects for all kinds of fascinating purposes. Visit our homepage to find out more and get started.