SaViT: Technique for Visualization of Digital Home Safety

Digital homes are expected to be the standard in the near future when all aspects of the home can be monitored and controlled remotely by the home owner. For example, if the home owner is unsure whether she closed the garage door before leaving for work, she can view the status of the garage door on her portable computing device such as laptop, PDA or cell phone, and if the garage door is indeed open, she can close it remotely from the same device. A chief requirement for this eventuality is proper visualization of the status as well as ability to control remotely. Among the more important aspects to be visualized for the digital home is ldquohome safetyrdquo which lets the home owner know the current safety level of her home and reasons therefor. Current trends in home safety visualization provide separate interfaces for each device at home: home alarm system has its own Web interface different from that provided by a home security camera. Visualizing home safety based on the data from different devices is not only labor and time consuming, but the decision regarding safety also needs to be made by the home owner. Moreover, current systems are bandwidth intensive and require expertise on the part of the home owner for proper usage. We have developed a novel home safety visualization technique called SaViT (safety visualization technique) that not only provides an integrated safety view of the home but also automates safety computation and is extremely easy to use.