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Inspiration

• We were inspired to work on a hardware project because we love electronics and wanted to build something that would hopefully solve a global issue! Also we loved participating in the hackathon and attended the Elastic Search workshop and raffle events which was fun!

What is the problem? Why is it important to us and others?

• Many a times lots of lights/appliances are switched on and no one bothers to switch them off when not needed thus consuming lots of electricity. So with our idea it would be much more convenient to switch off the unnecessarily switched on appliances by giving command.
• If we are not in home and left some appliance switched on then for that scenario also we have found solution to control our home appliances through Blynk App or Google Assistant.
• Secondly nowadays, globally, chances of theft are increasing each day as lock pickers can easily break the traditional door locks and get into our house. For that case we have made a security circuit using Atmega Microcontroller to allow authorized access into the house using biometrics.
• Also it solves the problems of losing door key, or getting locked out of house etc. It's a 3 in one solution for modern problems.

What it does?

It consists of a security circuit made using ATMEGA328 microcontroller for providing secure access into the house through the door allowing only authorized person to enter. The second circuit is the home automation circuit in which we are operating the bulb through both our google assistant or an app so that it makes our everyday tasks easier and also saves the electric cost in case we forget to switch off our devices and then we can switch it off very easily through the app from anywhere in the world.

If we could explain our product in one sentence, what would that be?

A security circuit for providing authorized access along with automation of home appliances easily.

How we built it

• The PCB design was done using free open source software, EazyEDA.com(schematic diagram, layout of the circuit tracks, gerber file)
• ATMEGA328 microcontroller - was used for the fingerprint registration. Coding was done into it using C programming language on AVR Vision.
• R305 Fingerprint Scanner- It is used for the registration of the finger and then giving the person secure access to his home.
• L293D Motor Driver- It drives the IC circuit which makes the door( represented as the motor) turn or rotate.
• NODEMCU with ESP8266- It is used to take up values through the wifi and pass it to our application. Takes up the power from the laptop.
• Arduino IDE- used for the coding of the NodeMCU.
• Blynk app- Used for creating the buttons to on/off our bulb through wifi without having to press on the switch.
• IFTTT Webhooks service - Used to create an applet to connect our application to the google assistant.

If our product succeeds, how will we see it in the future? Would it be short term or long term?

Our project is widely scalable and cost effective so it could be deployed not only for automation and security at homes but also other institutions, offices, etc.

What makes our product different from others? What makes it stand out from similar products? If it has competition, how is ours better?

Our product is widely scalable, compact and cost effective. It uses the latest trend, IOT, in it which is becoming popular day by day and will be deployed for lots of applications in the near future.

Challenges we ran into

• It took us a lot of time to connect and solder the components on the PCB board properly.
• Major challenge we faced was designing the circuit properly with no chances of error as the electronic components have the potential to explode or damage the entire connections if not placed correctly.
• Then we also had to check the simulations and rectify errors which was time consuming.

How were we able to apply our knowledge to create such a product?

Being electronics engineer, we applied our knowledge of PCB designing, microcontrollers, circuits, microcontroller programming using C and Arduino IDE into this project. It was a great learning experience!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to complete the project on time and our security system and home automation system works perfectly fine. We hope it can be useful and deployed on a wider scale! :)

What we learned

We learnt a lot about how to make connections on the PCB board, about ATMEGA328 microcontroller and interfacing it with other peripheral devices, about coding in the AVR Vision software, working with NODEMCU and coding on Arduino IDE, how to connect our devices through WIFI to an app or IFTTT platform, using the webhooks makers services to make an applet for using the Google Assistant.

What's next for Smart Secure Living!

Its not only restricted to automating a bulb. It can be used on a wider platform connecting it to a lot more home appliances through just the WIFI. Moreover, IOT is becoming very popular these days and hopefully in the future, we would be applying it in every field and not only Smart Home. We hope you liked our project! :)

Built With

• c++