Remotely Controllable Outlet System for Home Power Management

Abstract

In this paper, we describe a remotely controllable outlet system with mechanism for home power management. The system consists of four blocks: the Bluetooth Power-Controlled Outlet Module (BPCOM), the home server, the remote control and the GSM channel. Bluetooth, wireless system can control the home electric appliances wirelessly at home without new wiring. The BPCOM integrates the multiply AC power sockets and a simple plug-in low-power microcontroller performs the power on/off switching of the sockets. In addition, the power detection circuits are used by the Hall current transducer to verify home electric appliance power on/off status. For the power management module of the home server, we designed the software module by Visual Basic .NET, which supports the Graphic User Interface (GUI) to let users easily monitor the home electric appliances power on/off. We also integrate Bluetooth to receive/transmit between the home server and the microcontroller. The remote control also provides the users with the ability to control home appliances power on/off through the Internet and the GSM channel linked to the home server in order to receive the SMS (Short Message Service) for the power management of the home electric appliances power on/off anytime and anywhere.