Preliminary design of simple IoT-based Smart Home trainer for kids

Abstract

In the Industrial 4.0 era, all household appliances have been connected to the internet, i.e., lights, curtains, fans, and so on. Users can control it via a smartphone as a remote. The competency to master the concepts and practices related to IoT are useful. The basic concept of IoT can be introduced to students since they are in primary school. In this paper, we design an Internet-of-Things trainer to demonstrate one of a simple IoT application to children. A smart home system is selected as a use case; we select simple household appliances to represent a smart home environment. The trainer is divided into two parts: Android app as a remote system and the end-device as the node. The node is then divided into three types: mechanical-based (door-lock), electrical-based (mini DC fan, generic power switch), and sensor (temperature & humidity sensor). We used a 4-D research and development model to develop this trainer. However, this paper is limited to the "Define,""Design,"and "Development"stages. All nodes are tested their performance, and according to the functional test, it can work properly as expected: the nodes can be controlled (OFF to ON, or vice versa) and monitored (temperature and humidity) by using a smartphone. This trainer kit can be taught for 6th grade of elementary school students (about 12 - 14 years old).