Abstract

Technology has moved from a level at which a user is always present in a place before he/she can control or do anything at the place. Imagine what television used to be before the inception of remote control. With the inception of remote control, the television can be controlled while lying on the bed or sitting down on the chair. You do not have to move towards it and press the button on it before you can control it. Now envision how it will be, being able to control your entire home appliances automatically and even remotely. Different types of technology are available to do this but this paper looks at designing and simulating the usage of an SMS from mobile phone together with microcontroller (PIC16F876) in communicating with and controlling home appliances. The firmware is written in C language and translated into a Hexadecimal file using Custom Computer Services (CCS) Compiler. The translated Hexadecimal file is loaded into the microcontroller and the microcontroller is then interfaced with the mobile phone such that when this phone receives SMS, it gives the detail of the state of the home appliances remotely.  SMS can be sent to instruct the system to do some specific tasks like switching on or off of any of the appliances in the home, switching on the pumping machine to pump water and monitor it.  Anytime one feels like stopping an invoked action, it can be done remotely without being in the vicinity of the equipment.

Key words: Home automation, short message service, custom computer services compiler, simulation, microcontroller, general packet radio system networks, proteus software, firmware.