Smart Plug – A simple way to smarten your stuff

If you believe that “Smart Plug” means only Wi-Fi Plug, then you may not be right. The Smart Home concept began with the invention of remote control. Initially, the application-specific remote control came as an add-on of the product which empowered the user to control its features remotely. It provided a good experience and user convenience; however, it did not add any analytical value.   

The Smart plug comes into the picture to extend the home automation facility with valuable analytics. Firstly, it uses embedded Wi-Fi technology, increasingly well known as Wi-Fi plug. With the wireless technology revolutions, Smart Plug can have a different wireless interface, for example, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Sub-GHz proprietary channels.  

Here we attempt to understand an architectural level comprehension of “Smart Plug” and discuss its features and benefits. Nowadays it is very common to use a smart plug to automate your home appliances on your finger, also many manufacturers offer varieties of design and features. It is important to pick the correct one. 

We can see that the entire board is divided into two-parts “Electrical Block & Control Block” with required isolation.  

Electrical block contains:  

• Isolated rectifier to deliver the required DC source for control block  
• Measurement circuit to estimate the usage of power  
• Control circuit for AC line  
• Interface for AC input and output lines 

Control block contains:  

• Controlling element to manage every functionality  
• Internal memory storage to save user configuration, the behavior of users and different parameters  
• DC power management to use DC source and provide different biases as per requirement  
• Indication to show the activities/status locally  
• Wireless interface for user connectivity, status notifications, product configuration, and data uplink 

Features  

• Convert your ordinary appliance into a smart appliance 
• Remote access and operational control of an appliance  
• Enables scheduled usage of the device as per your plan  
• Enables understanding of appliances’ usage behavior/utilization  
• Ease of use without any technical skills  

Benefits 

• Identifies the events of over current drawn  
• Analyze the health of appliance and predict the possible life span of breakdown  
• Schedule your utility consumption  

We have extensive experience in assisting our customers with the systems needed for full solutions, and we pour that experience in producing great results for clients. If you have any queries or need custom solutions for your business, you can reach out to us anytime via email business@optimized.solutions or contact us on +91 79297 07308. You can also check out our case studies.

–  Bhavdipsinh Rathod