HomeOS: Context-Aware Home Connectivity

2012 12th Conference of Open Innovations Association (FRUCT), 2012

To assist independent living of senior citizens at their homes, a large variety of systems are used. The most sophisticated solutions are built using ambient technologies. A number of technology platforms are designed to provide ubiquitous services for maintaining a high quality of life while reducing operational expenses. Interoperability between platforms at different levels, including GUIs' dependences on devices is still a major weakness of many modern solutions. In a given work a vision of the Ubiquitous Home Environment is presented with respect to the ICT Home Services delivery. An implementation of a serving engine developed at Oulu University of Applied Sciences — the UbiHomeServer — is described. An abstracted view to its front-end is introduced. Such abstraction may reduce GUIs' dependences on devices and thus increase an interoperability of a system.

Connected technology in the home is growing rapidly due to advances in modern electronics. The growth of broadband is being followed by an associated uptake in home networks. At present the enabling technology tends to be visible and distinct (PCs, multimedia systems, Televisions, screens, etc). In the future, we predict the home will incorporate embedded systems and even greater networked-enabled shared resources resulting in a pervasive computing environment. Currently, there are a number of challenges to make this a reality. For example, how will users interact with the technology in a way that is intuitive and non-threatening; how will the wide range of devices communicate and coordinate their requirements and services? This paper describes research which is investigating the concept that as devices in the home become more interconnected and announce their capabilities over a network, a new model will present itself where devices are decomposed into functional components which may then be reused in a much more flexible way. An architecture to support this model is proposed and presents a novel approach to device configuration called Task Oriented Programming (TOP) together with work on meeting the challenge of providing suitable user interfaces in the pervasive home.

2009 Computation World: Future Computing, Service Computation, Cognitive, Adaptive, Content, Patterns, 2009

To relieve the end user of the configuration burden that arises when new devices are installed in the (home) network, service discovery protocols (SDP) have been devised. These enable automatic discovery of the services these devices offer. Yet, the existing SDPs are not compatible or interoperable. In this paper, we propose a framework that automatically translates between the various SDPs. We also solve the problem of current SDPs that only enable discovery within a single local (sub)network. Through a remote access component, we enable sharing of the services between multiple home networks. Hence we realize sharing of services over the boundaries of SDPs and home networks. Results of performance measurement on a proof-of-concept implementation illustrate that the framework operates transparently to the various SDPs: translation has no significant impact on response times compared to native SDP services.

2009

ABSTRACT As smart homes become more widespread, the need for more natural forms of interaction in the home also increases. On the one hand, forcing a user to go to a central home controller at every required change does not make sense. On the other hand, having a different controller for each device is also quite overwhelming. Object-Specific Interfaces (OSIs) allow an interface customized to an object of interest to show up on a mobile device when in close proximity to it.

2011

Nowadays, due to major technological developments, specifically in the area of multifunctional mobile devices, it is unthinkable not to imagine the evolution of smart home middlewares to integrate such kind of equipment, as it will provide users with an excellent integration of several services under a stunning user interface. In addition to this evolution, the use of a smartphone’s sensory capabilities can improve and innovate the way the user interacts with his home. This work aims to continue the middleware iDASH [1], which allows the creation of an abstraction layer, expanding it to mobile platforms, specifically equipments developed by Apple. Additionally, it enables the possibility of using smartphone sensors to trigger certain events in the context of smart home, as well as the ability to interact remotely in the context of a smart home. This can improve significantly the convenience and user’s satisfaction.

The ongoing growth of connectivity has brought new opportunities for Home Network; Home network will soon be a place of a large amount of services, from the gadget to the home control. In order to provide and render these services, operator should propose a framework for supporting the deployment of new services. This paper focuses on home services, proposing an overview of potential service architectures. Then a photo sharing services validates through implementation the concepts of Home Services and an analysis of architecture complexity is proposed to conclude this work.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2015

Smart homes are more and more popular since they are regarded as synonyms of an ideal and friendly environment. Novel aspects like context awareness and pro-activity are fundamental requirements for development of such systems. Smart scenarios enable switching devices in a desired way when a certain user activity considered as a trigger involves a system activity. Some smart scenarios are proposed. Context modeling and reasoning for smart homes is widely considered. A software architecture including web services is introduced and discussed.

5th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA'05), 2005

The Amigo project aims to develop a networked home system enabling the ambient intelligence / pervasive computing vision by effectively integrating devices and their hosted services in today's home. The Amigo system architecture poses limited technology-specific restrictions, supporting interoperability among heterogeneous services. Proceedings of the 5th Working IEEE/IFIP Conference on Software Architecture (WICSA'05) 0-7695-2548-2/05 $20.00 © 2005 IEEE

2008

The advent of ubiquitous computing, intelligent devices and increasing connectivity with Internet services brings integration aspects into the focus of research. This paper addresses issues of personalised service provisioning in a content environment. It introduces the mobile phone as authentication device, context-sensor, service enabler, and service end-point in a converged home environment. Focus is on provisioning of personalised services to the mobile device, while joining a TV-centric content session. The paper provides a set-top box centric service provision, where semantic technologies are used to establish the context-dependent and personalised services. Experiences from the real-world implementation conclude the paper.

Procedia Computer Science

In the last few years substantial progress has been made in smart home technologies, and promises to support and assist us in our daily life are higher than ever. This holds not only for regular users but also for people with special needs such as the elderly and people with disabilities. The appropriate design of smart homes can enable a more independent life for these users and can give them the chance to stay in their familiar environment for a longer period of time. Hence, the smart home concept can play an important role when addressing the demographic change that is present in most industrial countries. However, although technologies seem to be advanced and the expected benefits are high, a widespread adoption has not yet taken place. There are various reasons for this situation. Among them, the lack of appropriate user interfaces for the heterogeneous user group of future smart homes and the problem of low interoperability between different smart home systems can be mentioned. Two platforms addressing these problems are the Eclipse Smart Home (ESH) project and the Universal Remote Console (URC). ESH focuses on the integration of different device and back-end technologies; URC provides a personalized, pluggable user interface. This paper analyzes the similarities and differences between the two systems. As a result of the analysis, a concept for integrating the ideas of URC into the ESH project is proposed. This concept is a first step towards a platform for personalized user interfaces in the Smart Home and Ambient Assisted Living domain.