Context based smart home ambient personalisation

Abstract

Up till a few years ago, web based applications that could only be used with stationary desktop computers are now available on devices that can be carried in people's pockets. This has been brought about by recent advancements in mobile phones functionality, leading to higher levels of technology assisted living in everyday life. On the other hand, most mobile phone users still spend a large deal of their time at home, this also being an environment which is suited to the requirements of everyday life by the same users. The aim of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the home environment can be personalised with a location detecting mobile phone and a minimal cost infrastructure. The application groups and prioritises ambient devices into default, context and single modes of configuration. The ambient devices activation hardware is connected to the home server and takes inputs from the application that has the user phone as a client. An RDF mechanism was used for user default device settings profiling. Automatic loading of device settings in default and context modes coupled with contexts recommendation capabilities assist users in home environment personalisation. The use of a web-based application ensures mobile platform independence while the use of more natural interactions with less required alphanumeric inputs is in line with mobile phone hardware trends.