SmartHome: An IoT-Based Home Automation and Control System with Remote Monitoring and Energy Management

Conventional homes depend on manual switching of lights, fans, and air conditioners. Appliances are often left running when nobody is in the room, and the owner has no way to control them or receive security alerts when away from home. Commercial smart home products solve part of this problem, but they are often costly, tied to one brand, and difficult to extend. This paper proposes SmartHome, a low-cost home automation and control system through which users can monitor and control household appliances from a web or mobile application. ESP32 or Arduino microcontrollers switch appliances through relays and read motion, temperature, light, gas, and door sensors. Data is exchanged with a Node.js or Python (Flask/Django) back end through a REST API and lightweight protocols such as MQTT and WebSockets. A MySQL or PostgreSQL database stores users, devices, automation requests, ratings, and energy records, and cloud services such as Firebase or AWS provide remote access. Users can create time schedules and sensor-based rules, for example switching a light on when motion is detected in a dark room. Access is protected by JWT-based authentication and bcrypt password hashing. The system is organised into four modules: homepage, admin, end-user, and database. The paper presents the architecture, methodology, energy measures, and planned evaluation of the system.