1 Introduction
Home automation designates an emerging practice of increased automation of household appliances and features in residential dwellings, particularly through electronic means that allow for remote controlling. Many new communication technologies such as GSM/GPRS networks, wireless sensor networks, Bluetooth, power line carriers and the Internet have been applied to home automation. For example, wireless sensor networks based on ZigBee protocol is widely used in smart homes and it has become the focus in this field. It consists of comfort and home automation, security and safety at home, ambient assistance (intelligence) and remote health monitoring [1]. Guangming Song (etc)[2] developed a wireless-controllable power outlet system. The proposed power outlet module has mesh networking capabilities by adding a ZigBee radio into its architecture. Therefore, it successfully realizes remote control of home appliances. Wan-Ki Park(etc) [3] have proposed a ZigBee based universal remote control unit and a ZigBee to IR conversion module for controlling multiple legacy consumer electronics devices. Also, Il-Kyu Hwang[4] designed an integrated remote controller to control electric appliances in the home network with no extra attachment of communication device to the appliances using ZigBee protocol and infrared remote controller technology.