Net-Zero Smart Home Monitoring System

Many innovations in the renewable energy sector are being explored for deployment at residential and commercial sites with cost effectiveness and sustainability in mind. Although various solutions exist that allow for local monitoring and control of individual peripherals, there still exists a need for a truly integrated whole home solution for existing residential housings to convert them into smart homes without major upfront investment costs all the while still delivering the complete solution of control and monitoring of energy consuming peripherals. This paper and the corresponding project will validate the feasibility of such system by utilizing various cloud computing resources and building four cyber-physical subsystems that interactively communicate with the cloud to offer a solution suitable for any home. The prototypes will focus on implementing control and monitoring of various sensors and peripherals in a typical home that can improve optimization of energy consumption and improve efficiency by making autonomous decisions as well as educating consumers of energy utilization habits. A single node power consumption monitoring device will be implemented to mimic a smart branch circuit breaker where all non-critical loads can be connected. A second subsystem will detect a room's occupancy status. The third subsystem is a window position sensor that uploads a window open or close status to the cloud. The fourth subsystem will emulate a closed loop hot water recirculating pump system with active feedback on cold point temperature and real time indication of full circulation of hot water within water pipes. An M5Stack Core2 ESP32 IoT development kit for Amazon Web Services (AWS) will be utilized as the primary controller interface that will interact with Amazon Web Services cloud computing resources and enable communication and control of various internet-of-things (IoT) cyber-physical subsystems. Various AWS resources will be utilized to acquire, monitor, and archive data as well as control peripherals and sensor systems that can potentially be deployed around the house to achieve net-zero energy or self-sustainability if run on renewable energy. This project will further demonstrate the capabilities of cloud computing to help implement a complete smart home solution without relying on expensive aggregators or control units.