Design and Implementation of a Compact Home Security System

This paper presents the design and implementation of a compact home security system. The use of security systems in today’s home where safety is an important issue cannot be over emphasized. The high crime rates and domestic hazards has brought up the need to take proper measures to prevent intrusions and hazards. It is in this regard that the design and implementation of a compact home security system based on the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) comes in. Previous designs have used finger print protection, password protection, speech recognition, sensors with buzzer alarms, SMS and e-mail alerts but the designs were with so much complexities as well as at a cost disadvantage. The system presented here is of a minimal cost and simple design, it consists of one motion sensor, one temperature sensor, and one gas sensor.  The system was designed using the ATMEGA 8 microcontroller which controls the sending of SMS to the authorized number. The motion sensor (infrared) detects the movement of people entering the house and when there is a detection of an intruder the owner is notified through an SMS. The temperature sensor in this system also initiates an SMS to the owner when the temperature exceeds a particular value. The gas sensor also works in similar manner when it detects smoke and gas thereby sending SMS alert to the owner of the house. The respective sensors detected the compromise in each situation and sent the corresponding SMS to the user. This device therefore helps to prevent intruders, accidents arising from harmful gases and fire outbreaks in  homes, offices and industries.