Home Security Gateway Hub

In the Home Automation/DIY market, there are several companies/users that purchase sensors from customer but are looking for hubs that can work with these sensors. The customer was looking for a hub where the hardware cost and the running cost is minimum. The customer will be offering this product as a combination of IoT Gateway + few sensors.

Results / Outcomes

Developed a complete system with home gateway, cloud application, and mobile app.
Brought down the overall cost of the system to few tens of dollars
The system can support millions of Hubs and users
Simple and reliable Hub for securing homes against fire, flood, and freeze
Supports multiple wireless technologies for sensor and actuators at 433MHz and Z-wave
Simple and easy to use mobile app for managing the hubs, receiving the notifications and control the actuators like thermostat and valves.
Robust backend cloud application for managing users, hubs, sensors/actuators and handling real time notification via text messages, emails and push notifications
Followed serverless Microservices architecture for future enhancements and to reduce the overall cost
Administrator web application was developed to manage the users, hubs, and the complete system

Technologies used

MT7688,
Zwave,
SubGHz RF
OpenWRT
IoTivity
Node.js
iOS/Android and
AWS
- AWS API Gateway
- AWS Lambda
- Amazon SNS messaging service
- Amazon DynamoDB

Home Security Gateway Hub - System Architecture

Home Security Gateway Hub

Architecture for complete system including Hub, Cloud, and mobile application

Cloud Server

Cloud server hosted in Amazon.
AWS IoT for communication with Hub over MQTT and HTTP.
AWS API Gateway for communication with the mobile App.
AWS Lambda is used as a serverless compute service that runs code in response to events and automatically manages the compute resources required.
Amazon SNS messaging service is used to send notifications to Apple iOS, Android and other mobile devices, send emails and text messages.
Amazon DynamoDB. NoSQL database is used for storage

Hub Firmware

U boot customization for the specific RAM and flash memory on the custom board.
IOTVity framework, 433MHz support for sensor integration
ZIP Gateway for Z-Wave Integration
Board manufacturing test software with testing for all interfaces, firmware upgrade support
MQTT for cloud communication with AWS IoT cloud service
Development of protocol stack for handling communication with the PIC MCU
Integration of SQLite DB
Security – Support for mutual authentication with cloud

Hardware design with low cost optimization, prototyping, board bring up

Cadence allegro
Feasibility analysis for meeting sub 20$ BoM cost. Comparing multiple MCU and MPU based system designs to arrive at the lowest cost option.
Identifying pin compatible alternatives for memory with different capacities (SPI flash and DDR) for future proofing the software.