Smart Home Communication Technologies and Applications: Wireless Protocol Assessment for Home Area Network Resources

2015
, 
8 
7303 
 
Table 4.
Functional areas requirements 
vs
. home area network (HAN) requirements. 
Functional 
Areas 
HAN 
Requirements
 
A A
A
 
B B
B
 
C C
C
 
D D
D
 
Bandwidth
L L L
 
L M H
 
L M H
 
M H
VH
 
Security
 
N I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
N N N
Dependability
 
N N
I
I
I
I
N I
I
N N N
Network Operation
 
N N I
I
I
I
N N N
N N N
Energy Optimization 
N N N
I
I
I
I N N
N N N
L
-Low; 
M
-Medium; 
H
-High; 
VH
-Very High; 
N
-Not Important; 
I
-Important. 
Given that it dealt with sensible information on the patient health status, it was necessary to protect 
the transmission from data modification, impersonation, eavesdropping and replaying.
Since the majority of multimedia devices are static and transmitted content is not sensible, the 
security, dependability, network operation and energy optimization are low. When it comes to energy 
management, the load control has low risk; thus, it is not necessary for the communication 
infrastructure security to incorporate measures. Consequently, it means that, at this level, the protocol 
doesn’t need to have advanced resources and bandwidth. Likewise, for multimedia services, the 
majority of home appliances and devices are also static and the transmitted content is not sensible; 
thus, the dependability, security, network operation and energy optimization are low as well, especially 
for services such as activation and deactivation of home appliances, HVAC control, illumination 
systems and real time energy consumption. For people and goods protection, the surveillance and 
security measures present different performance levels according to their objectives. However, for this 
functional area, all of the implementations require network security and confidentiality measures since 
it could mean a security brake with unpredicted consequences. In this context, the sensor networks 
integrated in the surveillance system have to be designed taking into account the energy optimization 
of their radio units. 
In order to match specific communication requirements with wireless architectures capabilities, a 
technical and economic trade-off is necessary to minimize the global implementation cost.
In this regard, a set of critical features were identified and chosen to qualify wireless standard
suitability [1,10–12,31,40,86,87]. 
Table 5 clearly shows that the different services of a smart home have substantial differences in 
communication requirements. Therefore, none of the wireless protocols can be an answer to all
the requisites. 

---

Energies