LoRa Driven Home Automation System-A New Aspect of Smart Home

Chandramouli Haldar1, Soumik Podder1

1Departmentof Electronics and Communication Engineering, Guru Nanak Institute of

Technology, 157/F, Nilgunj Road, Panihati, Kolkata-700114, India

Corresponding author: nanotechsoumik@gmail.com

Abstract
An Internet of Things (IoT) technology is revamping our livelihood with connecting home and society by “things” that are linked with
each other. IoT driven smart home or conventional home automation system needs much power (battery usage) to be activated and to
connect different “things”. In order to minimize the power consumption with concomitant communication between the “things”,
communication technology plays a pivotal role in this regards. LoRa Technology, often called Long Range Radio communication
technology is oriented to low power wireless technology ,hence LoRa enabled Home Automation technology is at strong interest to
build up smart and sophisticated home. Latency is a serious issue in IoT and LoRa technologies. So low latency or delay should be
maintained in designing of smart home. In this context, several LoRa enabled home automation systems are depicted. This present
review will be helpful for researchers to develop smart home with optimized long range communication with low power and low latency.

Keywords: IoT, LoRa, Home automation, Latency, Power consumptions

Introduction
LoRa is a modulation technique based on the spread spectrum, attained from a technology called Chirp Spread
Spectrum (CSS). LoRa has become one of the most effective solutions in the field of the Internet of things (IoT)
as serving some most significant features, such as low cost and low power wireless platforms.
LoRa technology uses LoRa Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) protocol to solve several types of real-life problems
like controlling pollution, preventing disaster, managing energy, reducing natural resources ,and automation. The
functional areas are home automation, smart irrigation power management, smart cities, smart metering, etc. LoRa
is quickly becoming the leading enabler of the Internet of Things. Conventional wireless data communication
technologies like Wi-Fi or 4G were developed for the high speed transfer of large amounts of data to and from
the Internet. LoRa is different and has been designed to maximise energy efficiency in applications that only need
to securely exchange small amounts of data with the Cloud. LoRa-enabled devices conserve energy by powering
down between short data transmissions, which are sent and received at preset times, or in response to external
events. Even with highly efficient ultra-low power consumption a LoRa radio module can transmit data over
20km (line of sight) in a rural environment. In dense urban environments LoRa-enabled devices can send data
over 3-5km (depending on the antenna size and elevation). Unlike some other technologies LoRa radio signals
can penetrate deep into buildings. The emergence of LoRa technology can correct the shortcomings of the smart
home system because the previous technology lacked a limited number of nodes in several locations in one area,
for example in WiFi technology which required more access points to increase the coverage area.
Again, several communication devices lead to low power, wireless IoT communication. They are categorized into
two parts :
• A Local Area Network (LAN) with a range of fewer than 1000 m. Low power communication devices are
also called short-range area networks used in Private Area Network (PAN) and body networks such as Blue-
tooth, IEEE 802.15.4, and IEEE P802.1ah.

• A Wide Area Network (WAN) with a range of more than 1000 m. This low power communication devices
often include LoraWAN, Sigfox, and DASH7s, etc. (shown in Fig. 1)
 Gateway Gateway

YOU
Network Server

Figure 1– Block diagram of home automation using LoRa WAN

◆ IoT Base Home Automation
Home automation is appearing as a great idea in the field of computing and this becomes a greatly important and interesting
in the concept of internet of things. Nowadays it is becoming a part of leading quality life with the development of
technology and IoT devices all over the world. It can affect and change our daily lives in terms of security, comfort,
convenience, power, cost, and energy savings and also provide increased quality-of-life for persons who under normal
circumstance would require close care or institutional care, such as the elderly or disabled.
As the technology of Internet of Things (IoTs) matures, home automation has been accelerating its penetration into average
households in recent years. Many companies have made significant investment in home automation products. like Amazon
Echo, Google Home, Bitdefender Box for security, Nest products (thermostat, cameras, lock, and alarming systems),Philips
Hue, Linquet sensors, Logitech smart controller, etc. Smart lighting system can detect when and where occupants are in the
room and adjust the lights dimming and direction as needed. It allows us to schedule, monitor, and remotely control the
home temperature. Smart doors and security cameras can detect residents to improve proper safety and security of the home.
Real life feel of the system and the environment is demystified with the inclusion of real-time audio-visual devices. Recently,
wireless systems like Zigbee, Wi-Fi, LoRa and Bluetooth have become common in home networking.
In home automation systems, the use of wireless technologies gives several advantages which give it an upper hand
compared to a wired network. These technologies are developed to improve and enhance lives and the environment despite
of drawbacks. The drawbacks are enlisted as –System crashes due to any damage in the interconnection, human error,
reliability due to sharing information in a distributed manner etc.

Advantage Disadvantage

• Flexibility for new devices and appliances • Littile bit Expancive

• Maximizing home security. • Human Error.
• Remote control of home functions. • Reliability.
• Increased energy efficiency. • System crashes due to any damage in the
interconnection.
 Figure 2- IoT based Home automation

◆ Emergence of LoRa in IoT Based Home Automation System.

Islam et. al. have introduced a solution for regular users by providing a complete home automation system.
The users can easily afford this solution in their daily activities. They also have developed an android
application that enables users to operate all the electronics components. To ensure the entire home automation
they employed LoRaWAN technologies with Bluetooth connectivity, a server based LoRa gateway
mechanism. If a user remains in a short-range, Bluetooth will be used. In case of unavailability of Bluetooth
connection, a server-based LoRa gateway will be used. If a user remains outside of short and medium-range
wireless communication, it will be operated by LoRa.

Figure 3. Comparison in distance coverage between LoRa, Bluetooth, IR Sensors, Wi-Fi [1]

The as developed model has attained a system usability scale ( SUS) score of 93%.[1]

Adam et.al. had designed a home automation system , available in the market, is based on platforms which
help to connect devices or things around the home. The system makes the home intelligent or smart with
ease. To achieve this, the use of static IP addresses is encouraged due to which there is a facility to detect the
current state of devices by use of state function. They also said that home automation using internet of things
over LoRa technology with the help of Android application is both user friendly and cost effective. The
success rate of this model is about 95% according to results obtained from the analysis.[2]
 Opipah et.al. depicted the design and construction of a LoRa-based smart home system prototype that can
complete functions according to specifications because it can perform real-time room temperature monitoring
and control electronic devices on lights, TV, and air conditioners. The LoRa-based smart home system using
a smart home interface application can control electronic devices and monitor the temperature in a semi-open
space with a maximum distance of 183m. In an obstructed space the maximum distance is 63 meters.[3]

Shahjalal. et.al. investigated that LoRa is considered cheaper and encourages longer battery life among other
LP-WAN technologies that can be best suitable for remote operations in an IoT-based Home automation.
LoRa integrated with AI learning models for IoT servers and clouds could serve intelligent tasks in home
environment. A dataflow design for the LoRa-based home monitoring using AI was presented. The
advantages of using LoRa technology for home automation over other LPWA networks were also summarized
in this work.[4]

REFERENCES

[1] Islam, Rahabul, et al. "LoRa and server-based home automation using the internet of things (IoT)." Journal
of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences vol.34, pp. 3703-3712, 2022.

[2] Bababe Adam, B., Kumar, A., & Kumar, R. Lora Based Intelligent Home Automation System, International
Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT), vol. 6, pp. 87-92, 2017.

[3] Opipah, S., Qodim, H., Miharja, D., Hamidi, E. A. Z., & Juhana, T. Prototype design of smart home system
base on LoRa. 2020 6th International Conference on Wireless and Telematics (ICWT), IEEE pp. 1-5, 2020.

[4]Shahjalal, M., Hasan, M. K., Islam, M. M., Alam, M. M., Ahmed, M. F., & Jang, Y. M. An overview of AI-
enabled remote smart-home monitoring system using LoRa. 2020 International Conference on Artificial
Intelligence in Information and Communication (ICAIIC), pp. 510-513. IEEE, 2020