Vibrotactile Feedback Remote Control in Smart Home Electrical Appliances Module for the Visually Impaired

Abstract

Visually impaired people face difficulties in getting feedback on the status (ON or OFF) of their electrical appliances in their home. This study presents a remote control for Smart Home Electrical Appliances Module with vibrotactile feedback features, targeted for visually impaired person. To achieve this, a custom designed control panel is used. This control panel has buttons to turn on and turn off appliances, and a button which when clicked, will check the status of the appliances, and provide feedback to the user on the state of the appliances in the form of vibration by using a vibration motor. These vibrations are in Morse code. The control panel is controlled by a microcontroller which is connected to a wireless module. The receiving side has a relay module which allows for turning on and off AC devices. Experimental results shown that 76.07% of the vibrotactile feedback on the module can successfully conveyed to the visually impaired users.