Smartmin is an Internet of Things application developed as part of the Internet of Things course of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of University of Patras.
Its purpose is to provide an administrative solution for public buildings, by temperature and humidity monitoring and alerting when these values exceed certain limits, as well as smart devices control. Moreover, the administrator can manage certain devices via the application.
During the application development the following technologies were used:
- MongoDB
- Express.js
- Vue.js (+Vuetify framework)
- Node.js
- Node-RED
The system's database is a NoSQL MongoDB. This choice was made in order to make the system more scalable and avoid the strict limitations an SQL db defines. The database schema is defined in the model directory of the backend application.
The system's backend is based on the combination of Express.js and Node.js, because they provide an easy way to develop a server and a REST API for providing data to the frontend or other applications that need to access data for the public building our solution is installed to.
Ths system's frontend is a Vue.js application, using the Vuetify styling framework. This technology was used because it is easy to learn and simplifies the app development.
Node-RED is a useful tool which was used during our application development for emulating the temperature and humidity sensors functionality. Due to supply and time issues, the sensors functionality is emulated from a Node-RED flow in the alpha version as well.
The frontend application communicates with the server via HTTP requests. The admin logs in the system and after that requests data which a non certified user cannot access.
The server connects to the database with the mongoose module and then performs the basic CRUD operations when requested either from the application or the edge devices.
The edge devices communicate with the server via HTTP requests.
Our solution's alpha version provides a first impression of its capabilities.
Our solution provides alerting, both from the application's panel and by sending an email to the admin with the necessary information concerning this alert.
Our solution emulates the opening and closing of edge devices such as lights and locks with emailing the state of the device. This choice was made to demonstrate the application's functionality without real devices, because no device was available due to supply issues. In the future, without many modifications and work, the system should adapt to the use of real edge devices.
Our solution emulates the temperature and humidity sensors functionality with a Node-RED flow, sending a POST request to our server's dedicated endpoints. Then, our application presents the received data using graphs with the given values, as well as some facts (max, min and average values). In the future, without many modifications, the system should adapt to the use of real sensors.
The installation of the application can be performed by cloning the Github Repository using the following command:
git clone https://github.com/sifislaz/smartmin.git
or with Github Desktop application.
Open a terminal in the /smartmin_frontend directory and execute the command: npm i to install the required modules.
Create a MongoDB database following the schema provided under the /smartmin_backend/model directory.
Open a terminal in the /smartmin_backend directory and execute the command: npm i to install the required modules.
After that, in the same directory create a config.env file which should contain the following information:
DB_URI = <The uri provided from mongo db>
ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET = <A 32 (or more) characters jwt secret>
MAIL_USER = <The gmail account from which the backend will send emails>
MAIL_PASSWORD = <The password of the gmail account>
MAIL_ADMIN = <The admin's email to which the backend will send information>
Important Note: About the gmail password, follow these instructions.
Important Note: The
config.envfile must be included in a.gitignorefile if you use Git
Important Note: The user must have a password 8-16 characters with 1 capital letter, 1 number and 1 character between: !,@,#,$,%,^,&,*.
In order to start the server, open a terminal in the /smartmin_backend directory and run the command npm run dev. After that, the messages:
"Mongo DB connected"
"Listening on port 3000"
should appear.
In order to start the frontend application, open a terminal in the /smartmin_frontend directory and run the command npm run serve. Wait for the application to build.
In order to start the Node-RED flow that emulates the sensors functionality, open a terminal, run the command node-red and then open a web browser and go to http:localhost:1880.
Then open the hamburger menu, click "Import" and upload the flows.json file from sensors_emulation folder and click "Import". After that, click deploy and then click the blue button left to the "timestamp" label.