Deployment of smart home management system at the edge: mechanisms and protocols

Due to growing popularity of smart home systems, smart home security is a topic which is becoming increasingly important. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are obtaining increasing access to private data, but very often it does not mean that improved security mechanisms and mechanisms guaranteeing availability are implemented. The main problem is limited computing power and the limited memory of the nodes used in the network. Moreover, IoT systems are increasingly often managed through the cloud, which causes that their interfaces are available over the Internet. Another problem is the lack of expertise of users which can lead to configuration errors potentially causing data loss and hacker attacks. In this paper, we face up security and availability issues in smart homes and propose an edge-of-things solution that focuses on putting the management of the home at the edge. The management is controlled by the network operator in a similar way as occurs with current set-top-boxes for multimedia streaming at home. We propose an architecture for this system, implement the necessary modules and test it from the point of view of security and availability. The results show that the proposed edge-of-things solution is able to solve many of the challenges that current smart home applications present.