Smart blueprints: Automatically generated maps of homes and the devices within them

Abstract

Off-the-shelf home automation technology is making it easier than ever for people to convert their own homes into "smart homes". However, manual configuration is tedious and error-prone. In this paper, we present a system that automatically generates a map of the home and the devices within it. It requires no specialized deployment tools, 3D scanners, or localization hardware, and infers the floor plan directly from the smart home sensors themselves, e.g. light and motion sensors. The system can be used to automatically configure home automation systems or to automatically produce an intuitive map-like interface for visualizing sensor data and interacting with controllers. We call this system Smart Blueprints because it is automatically customized to the unique configuration of each home. We evaluate this system by deploying in four different houses. Our results indicate that, for three out of the four home deployments, our system can automatically narrow the layout down to 2-4 candidates per home using only one week of collected data. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.