Home automation is a rapidly growing area in the modern technology industry. Systems for automation are most commonly encountered within houses, but there is a growing trend towards automation in the automotive industry as well. In this thesis, we focus on the automation of the motorhome. We identify control panels for managing devices within motorhomes which are already on the market, as well as web and mobile applications that are available for the management of the individual manufacturer's devices. From the user's perspective, this means that the camper contains different control panels, where a separate web or mobile application is needed for each device that is not from the same manufacturer. This is very disruptive and in this thesis, we try to tackle this problem.
We present the design and development procedure of a smart motorhome control system, which enables the control of most of the devices installed in the motorhomes. We describe the main hardware and software components, as well as the communication protocols. For the purpose of system management, and consequently, motorhome, we develop a web and mobile application. After being satisfied with the system stability, we decided to do a feature freeze and carried out a user experience study with the potential users. The study lasted for almost two months, and the participating users helped us detect system and user interface weaknesses. Based on their feedback we then propose and make improvements to our system.
In conclusion, we compare features of our system pre and post user experience study. We conclude by presenting possible system improvements and plans for future work.
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