Friendly Home Automation System Using Cell Phone
and J2ME with Feedback Instant Voice Messages
Mahmoud shaker Nasr
Department of electrical and engineering
University of Garyounis
Benghazi, Libya
e-mail : mahmoud111957@garyounis.edu
Abstract - This paper introduces a friendly system to control
the home appliances remotely by the use of mobile cell
phones; this system is well known as "Home Automation
System" (HAS).
The designed system covers the most important required
factors in home automation system such as flexibility,
security, easy to use, the ability to feedback information to
the client immediately, … etc.
The presented system uses the J2ME language to program
the client mobile which sends information to the service
mobile and this controls the operation of the appliances via a
PIC microcontroller which connected to it and programmed
in such a way that introduces the main characteristics of the
system. Optocoupler and static power switch (TRAIC) are
used as the interface devices between the PIC and the home
appliances.
The proposed HAS in this paper is implemented practically,
tested and gave the correct and expected results.
Key words: HAS, Home Automation, DTMF, PIC Microcontroller,
J2ME, Voice Message Feedback.
I. INTRODUCTION
The idea of home automation system (HAS) has been
implemented for some years. It began with the concept of
domotic which is the combination of computer application and
robot technology. In other words, it is the control of home
appliances by means of a computer [4]. Then the concept is
developed to a modern one, it is talking about the interaction
of technologies and services applied to different buildings
with the purpose of increasing security, comfort,
communication, and energy saving.
Home automation technology, although not yet as widely
adopted in most part of the world as in the US, is becoming
Mahmoud Sh. Nasr is associate professor with the
department of electrical and electronic engineering,
university of garyounis, Benghazi, Libya, (e-mail:
mahmoud111957@ garyounis.edu).
978-1-4244-3806-8/09/$25.00 © 2009 IEEE
Fahtha H. A.salem Azwai
Abdulminem riadh center training
General Public Committee for Training and Employment
Benghazi, Libya
e-mail: rawaa2006@ garyounis.edu
more and more available, affordable and interesting to the
wider public. What once was not far from novelty products,
like the "Clapper" that switches the lights on by the clap of
your hands, is now becoming an important factors of utility,
convenience and usability in modern houses. These factors
are added to the already substantial possibilities of
entertainment and security created by home automation[1].
Accessibility aspects of home automation also became more
acceptable, considering the current demographical shift in
the western world, which will create an increased demand
for accessibility in homes and possibly for related facilities
such as remote health monitoring.
The problem of HAS is that, these systems are not always
fully accepted by ultimate users, especially the old and
disable, arguable the ones that need it the most. It is the goal
of researchers to find out how to introduce home automation
into our lives so as to only affect us positively. As an
example, that effort to make system usable and affordable
by any user helped the user of old, cheap, and simple
technologies like the use of mobile cell phones and the
exploitage of the available mobile network to transfer data
from anywhere site client in order to remote control the
home appliances at anywhere site all over the world.
Another example is the use of X-10 protocol to transmit
data to home network. The X-10 technology has also many
advantages to control the home appliances [3].
The main parameters by which the HAS can be estimated
are: interoperability (the capability of devices of different
types and from different manufactures to communicate and
cooperate), scalability, security, availability, usability,
existence of multiple standards, simplicity, the ability to
feedback information to the client, friendly, and flexibility.
These represent a good reasons which call the attention of
companies to enter quickly this emerging market, also they
represent a great research opportunity in creating new fields
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in engineering, architecture, communication, and control, so
HASs are becoming popular.
The presented paper introduces a friendly HAS that complies
the mentioned parameters using two mobile cell phones (client
and server). The client cell phone is the master and contains
the main menu of the HAS which is programmed by J2ME
language. The server cell phone (situated in the home) to
which the controller is connected which controls the operation
of the home appliances. The controller consists of a DTMF
(Dual Tone Multiple Frequency) and a PIC microcontroller.
The interfacing circuit consists of an optocoupler and a static
power switch (TRIAC).
II. SYSTEM FEATURES
The system considered in the present paper introduces the
following features:
1. Visual Menu of home appliances the user see all appliances
he want to control and operation instructions on the mobile
phone screen by J2ME software.
2. The system allows the user to control (On or off) nine of
home appliances and can be expanded to 22 without adding
any component (depending on the microcontroller
programming).
3. Controlling a high voltage device.
4. Knowing the devices present state (On or off) at any time
with voice message.
5. Knowing if the home AC main power is off via voice
message.
6. The system will communicate with user, and gives
information about device's state after controlling (on or off)
with voice message.
7. Any phone number can't access the home server by calling
the server number, only the specify numbers will be
answered, the specify numbers are of user choice. This
feature has been added in the presented HAS for security.
8. Can add multi users to control this system this feature refer
to user choice.
9. Server cell phone can be used for normal use without any
effect in the home system, the system give ability of
changing the server number by an option in the menu of
master phone.
10. Server has a password at least 4 digits long and can be
increasing by the user.
11. The controller will close the line automatically after
entering three wrong passwords.
12. The Capability of changing the server password by user
remotely at any times.
13. If there is no keypad pressed for more than 30 seconds,
the controller closes the line automatically. This feature for
don’t keep the telephone line busy for unwanted reasons,
this feature save user money
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14. Working at convention home power and need no
specific electrical network.
15. The system is nonvolatile; that means information of
appliance status and new password aren’t lost if home
power is off.
III. SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE
The system architecture of the proposed HAS in this paper
can be explained according to the block diagram shown in
figure (1). The system mainly consists of two cell phones
one remote cell phone which called Master cell phone
(client) which controls the operation of the remote home
appliances, this cell phone contains the main menu which it
is programmed via J2ME language; and the other home cell
phone which called server phone because it is fixed in home
server controller board.
This system allows a user to control and communicate
with home appliances by programming cell phone and built
in the mentioned several features.
The home appliances are controlled by the home server
phone, which operates according to the user commands
received from the master phone via the server phone. The
control circuit which is connected to the home server phone
consists mainly : DTMF decoder, microcontroller,
interface& isolation circuit and voice message feed back
circuit.
IV. SYSTEM OPERATION
The system operation procedure can be summarized as
follows:
Once the user (the commander) (client) dials the server
phone number, the server phone answers automatically
(open the line automatically), then the user can control the
operation state of home appliances according to the
following successive steps after the line opened:
1. Enter the required password.
2. Enter "0" followed by the number of a specific home
appliance to know the present state of such appliances.
3. Enter "#" followed by the number of a specific home
appliance to change the present state from "Off" to
"On" and vice versa.
4. Enter "*" followed by the new password the password
will changed.
5. All the control states are feedback to the user by means
of voice messages.
 Home server controller
GSM
DTMF Micro
decoder Controller
Master Server
Voice message
phone cell phone
Figure 1. Block diagram of over all system design.
V. SYSTEM COMPONENTS
Referring to figure (1) the system consists of the following
components, namely;
a. Master cell phone, which contains the main menu.
b. Server cell phone.
c. Control circuit.
a) The master phone serves as a remote control device through
which a user can interact with the home automation system.
User friendly graphical user interface is provided on the
mobile phone through applications developed in Java
programming language, which carries out the task of
operating and checking sequence of home appliances.
The required application (menu) is designed using J2ME
language since J2ME characterized by the following main
advantages:[2]
• The portability of Java ensures that applications
developed in Java language are portable across
different mobiles from different manufacturers.
• Since Java has a rich library of application program
interfaces (API) providing functions such as graphical
user interface, sending and receiving SMS messages,
and communicating via GPRS, etc,
• Java applications for mobile phones can be easily
developed by using Java development tools commonly
known as development environment.[1].
• Most mobile phone manufactures provide their
respective handset emulators for developers to test their
applications on before testing on real phones.
The software of cell phone in our case is J2ME (Sun’s Java 2
Platform Micro Edition) is a form of the Java language that is
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AC
Main
Power
driver
&isolator
optimized for small devices such as mobile phones. Most
phone manufacturers have made a strong commitment to
Java phone deployment. Tens of millions of Java-enabled
phones are already in consumers’ hands with the ability to
add capabilities to their phones without having to purchase
new ones. Although J2ME is not the only language
deployed on phones, it is an industry standard backed by
many manufacturers and therefore offers a large and
growing installed base. It is a natural choice for mobile
application development.
We used call phone procedure of connection between two
cell phones; it allows control and interface better than SMS
or WAP in feedback and information about the present state
of each devices before given order.
The software functions are make connection (call phone)
with home phone and show the home appliances sequence
and number of each device which is used in the control
order. Figure (2) shows an example of programming of the
master cell phone.
b) The server cell phone, this phone resides in the home
which receive the call from the master phone and to which
the control system is connected.
c) The control circuit is the heart of the HAS and as we said
earlier is connected to server cell phone, this home server
communicates with the mobile phone via GSM network and
call phone, at this call phone the user will send DTMF tones
by pressing the mobile keypad these tones pass through ear
phone to DTMF decoder that decode the DTMF tones in to
binary code.
The DTMF outputs will be connected to the miicrocontroller to
allow action to be taken corresponding to the rreceived DTMF
tone. The DTMF tones will produce vvarying outputs
depending on the keys pressed by thhe user. The
microcontroller will use this information to determine and
validate the sequence of keys entered by the usser.
The microcontroller programming will executte this sequence
information as output order to power driver circuit or voice
message unit.
The control system consists of the following coomponents:
1. DTMF
Dual Tone Multiple Frequency (DTMF) , tthe DTMF is a
decoder when any key on the cell phone iss pressed a two
different frequencies are generated, the DTM MF detects these
frequencies and decode a four digits latchedd output whose
value depends on the pressed key. For examplee, if bottom "1"
is pressed on the keypad the DTMF decoder output is 0001, if
bottom "9" is pressed the decoder output is 1001 and so
on.[5]
The presented system uses the CM8870 DTM MF decoder to
allow the system to decode the DTMF signals sent by the user
through server cell phone in to binary code, theese digital codes
fed to microcontroller input. The CM88770/70C DTMF
integrated receiver provides the design engineer with not only
low power consumption its Less than 35mW power
consumption, Uses quartz crystal or ceram mic resonators,
Adjustable acquisition and release times, 18-piin DIP ( refer to
figure (3)), Power down mode, Buffered OSC3 output (PLCC
package only) and by grounding pins 5 annd 6, but high
performance in a small 18-pin DIP, SOIC, oor 20-pin PLCC
package configuration.
Figure 2. Shows one stage of programming the masterr cell phone.
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The CM8870/70C’s internal architectture consists of a band
split filter section which separates thee high and low tones of
the received pair, followed by a dig gital decode (counting)
section which verifies both the frequ uency and duration of
the received tones before passing the resultant 4-bit code to
the output bus.
In a single-ended configuration, the in nput pins are connected
as shown in figure (3). The inteernal clock circuit is
completed with the addition of a staandard television color
burst crystal or ceramic resonator having a resonant
frequency of 3.579545 MHz.
Really there are also two important pins of a DTMF,
a. The TOE (pin 10): (Tri-State outtput enable) pin is an
active low input used to disable/enablle the output latch. The
TOE pin will be connected to ground d in disable the output
with high impedance, it is useful in caase of unwanted output
code, and connect to VDD in order to o have the output latch
enabled at all times.
b. The STD signal (pin 15): this signaal goes high during the
time any valid key is pressed, if the key
k is released the STD
goes low, this signal is using in the prresented system; to tell
a microcontroller that the key is pressing and DTMF tone
are transmitting and the output latch h has been updated, at
this time a microcontroller read the daata.
2. PIC Microcontroller
The microcontroller is the main unit in presented design, it
takes the sequence order code from m DTMF decoder and
translates it as programming to output devices for
controlling (on-off) or read the preesent state, check the
password and change it also control the
t voice messages, i.e
by PIC microcontroller all the featuress of the presented HAS
are provided. We use pic16f877A whose w pin diagram is
shown in figure (4).
Figure 3. DTMF pin diagram and
a connection.

Figure 4. Shows the pin configuration for the PIC16F887.
The most important issue when using the PIC is the port
configuration. The port functions are configured by writing
data into specific internal registers that called TRIS, in our
design we use ports as following:
PortC: as an input that connects to DTMF output.
PortD: as an output that connects to power isolation circuit,
which interface between microcontroller and home
appliances.
PortB: as an output that connects to voice message circuit
(ISD2560) divided in to the control order of ISD and message
address.
PortE connects to led to mentoring each part.
Figure (5) shows the port construction circuit of
microcontroller in addition to oscillator circuit.
Figure 5. Shows the connection of microcontroller.
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3. Feedback circuit (voice messages) (ISD2560).
As mention in the features that presented in this paper, the
voice messages will play back to the user at different states.
The circuit which feeds back (or give) the necessary
information to the user is isd2500 series, we used ISD2560
for our design. The feedback information is a voice
messages in Arabic language, of course it is simple to
record the necessary messages in any desired language. The
recorded messages are:
"wrong data entering" if any wrong data is entered, "the
apparatus in on state" if the apparatus is in on-state, "the
apparatus is changed to on state" if the apparatus state is
changed from off to on, "the AC power if off" if there is no
electrical current in the house, "the apparatus in off state" if
the apparatus is in off-state, "the apparatus is changed to off
state" if the apparatus state is changed from on to off.
These voice messages are recorded and then playback a
specific message at the required instant, to do that we must
consider the addressing of ISD2560 to parted 60 sec of ISD
in to 6 messages each message 3 second (3/0.1=30) (since
the resolution of 2SD260 is 0.1) the address is at 30 but we
choose 32 in order to decrease the addressing lines to 3
only, the messages addresses are shown in table (1) while
figure (6) shows the pin diagram and connection circuit of
ISD2560.[10]
Then, the voice circuit needs only 3 lines (A5,A6, & A7) for
messages addressing and required only 2 lines to control the
ISD2560 mode of operation (PD and CE ) these lines are
tied from the microcontroller. The procedure of controlling
the play back of the voice messages is as follows:
1. P/R should be always high in play back voice messages,
we can connect it to Vcc at all the time, in our case this
controlled pin don’t need a specific line from
microcontroller.
2. CE pulse low to Playback starts, this pulsed are given
from microcontroller output.
3. The PD pin should be LOW, during the message play
back after that it should active high to Stop/Reset, also
taken from microcontroller output line.
TABLE (1) SHOWS THE MESSAGE ADDRESSING OF ISD2560 OF 6
MESSAGES (3.2SEC) TIME DURATION
Msg. A7 A6 A5 Msg.
No. Addr Duration
(sec)
1 00 0 0 0 0 Æ <3.2
2 32 0 0 1 3.2 Æ 6.4
3 64 0 1 0 6.4Æ <9.6
4 96 0 1 1 9.6Æ <12.8
5 128 1 0 0 12.8Æ < 16
6 160 1 0 1 16 Æ < 16.2
 VI. OVERALL SYSTEM DESIGN
Figure (7) shows the flowchart of the main program of the
HAS presented in this paper.
The PIC will be programmed using the PIC ProBasic
complier The IDE allows the PIC to be programmed using a
high level language. The code is compiled into a compatible
HEX file and then burned to the PIC. The device used to
“burn” the PIC is the winpic programming.

The following procedure of the PIC programming is

Figure 6. ISD2560 pin diagram and connection circuit.
One can refer to ISD2560 data sheet for more details about its
addressing and operation.
There is another solution for messages recording and playback
is the use of MP3 player instead of ISD2560.
4. Power Isolation circuit
Power isolation circuit provides the electrical isolation
between the microcontroller and the power circuit (home
appliance) in addition to protect the microcontroller from
damage in case of any faulty operation of appliance.
Optocoupler is a proper device to realize the required goal;
because it works by photon sense there are no any connection
between high voltage side and low voltage side, in the
presented system 4N25 optocoupler is used.
The control signal which comes from microcontroller to
control the appliances is applied to the photodiode of the
optocoupler which bias the photo transistor to make the
connection of high voltage
After that we need the driving circuit to increase the current
for correct operation of the gate of triac circuit. The transistor
type NPN TIP121 is used.
realized.
1. Initialize the ports as: (port C) is an input and (port D,
port A, Port E) are output.
2. Initialize the ports as: (port C) is an input and (port D,
port A, Port E) are output.
3. The program waits until the user presses any keypad and
releases it.
4. At this time the microcontroller will read the input code
from port C, which connect to the DTMF output.
5. The programming will looped around the two last steps,
until 4 digit codes will input (the password), then
compared these input codes with the password stored in
EPROM, to check the user.
6. If the 4 entered digits aren’t correct the program will go
back to check password this step repeats only three times
after that will disconnect the call phone by send pulse
from RA5 in port A to server cell phone.
7. If the 4 entered digit are correct the program will go to
state_action (label in program) and run out the procedure
of program (change the state or read the state or change
the password).

5. Static power switches

TRIACs are widely used in AC power control applications,
They are able to switch high voltages and high levels of
current, and over both parts of AC waveform [9]. This makes
TRIAC circuits ideal for use in a variety of applications where
power switching is needed. One particular use of a TRIAC
circuits in domestic appliances on/off and control of ac
motors. In addition, in most applications TRIAC overcomes
the main problems of the use of electromagnetic relays and
contactors in spite of it is simple to control its operation
comparing with TRIAC which requires an additional
electronic circuit to control it. TRIAC TIC246D is used in this
Figure 7. Flowchart of the main program of proposed HAS.
system.

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8. The procedure is as follows:
• if user presses '0' it means that read the present state,
the program will wait until user presses the number of
device which want to read the state, and the program
will read the (output port state) and check it if the
specify pin of this device is low or high, if its low the
program will goes to off present message subroutine
which play back the voice message of this case, and it
is the same in case of high state the voice message of
ON present state will be playback. These message is
controlled by send the specific order from portA to
ISD2560.
• If user presses '#' it means that change the present state.
the program will wait until user presses the number of
device which want to change its state, after that the
program change a specific pin's state, At this time the
On_done message and Off_done message will be play
back by send specify order from port A to ISD2560.
• If user presses '*' it means that change the password,
the program will stored the four entered digit after
the"*" in EEPROM in specific location of password.
9. After each step from a preview step the program will back
to state-action label and wait next entered.
10. During call, the program is waiting until any key is
pressed, the counter will count the time if it exceeding 30
second the system will disconnect the call phone by send
pulse from RA5 in port A to server cell phone.
Figure (8) shows the detail of overall circuit of the proposed
HAS.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
The presented HAS in this paper is realized practically, tested
for multi modes of operation and gave an excellent control of
the home appliances under test. The system presented in this
paper introduced a friendly system to control the home
appliances remotely by the use of mobile cell phones. The
proposed system is characterized by its grand features
required for the modern home automation system such as
537
flexibility, security, friendly, in addition to the existence of
feedback on line messages to inform the master about the
state of the system and the appliances.
VIII. REFERENCES.
[1] [1] Van Der Werff, M. Gui, X. Xu, W.L. Massey Univ.,
Palmerston North, New Zealand "A Mobile-based home
automation system" IEEE,2006.
[2] [2] Julio Sanchez, Maria P. Canton, "JAVA Programming for
Engineers", CRC Press LLC, Printed in the United States of
America, © 2002
[3] [3] Jason Chiang-"Cell Phone Security System", Cornell
University-May 2006
[4] Computer Automation Technology, Inc. "Discussion about
DTMF decoding"; Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
[5] [5] David P. Marchetti, Eric White, Aaron Sanford "DTMF
Automated Door System", School of Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando,
Florida ; May 2007
[6] [6] Sid Katzen, The Quintessential PIC Microcontroller,
Engineering – Monograph (English), 2000, Springer-Verlag,
[7] [7] Microcontroller Programming The Micro-chip PIC, Julio
Sanchez, Maria P. Canton, CRC Press, Boca Raton London New
York, 2007.
[8] [8] PIC micro MCU C® An introduction to programming
The Microchip PIC in C By Nigel Gardner, Copyright® Bluebird
Electronics 2002, USA.
[9] [9 ] Issa Batarseh, " Power Electronic Circuits", Jone Wiley and
Sons, Inc © 2004.
[10] [10] Winbond electronic corp. " Single-chip, multi messages
voice record/playback device IDS-60,75,90, & 120 seconds
duration, may 2003, USA.
Figure 8. Overall circuit diagram of the proposed HAS.

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