ArcIoT: Enabling Intuitive Device Control in the Internet of Things through Augmented Reality

Increasing numbers of smart devices have enriched the possibilities of the IoT. These advances also impose significant cognitive overhead on the end-users; to interact with IoT devices, a user must be knowledgeable about the devices, the applications, the network, etc. We present ArcIoT, a system that enables intuitive interaction with IoT devices by leveraging Augmented Reality (AR) and a novel relative indoor localization service. In ArcIoT, the user points a smartphone camera towards a device to control, chooses the device by a tap on the screen, and interacts with the displayed interface. Continuously and transparently, ArcIoT maintains a map of devices in the environment, which allows it to quickly and reliably control them. Compared to existing solutions, ArcIoT does not need predefined markers to recognize a device or require any change to physical infrastructure. ArcIoT is also robust to changes in the locations of the IoT devices in the environment. We successfully deployed ArcIoT in different home environments and evaluated its performance to demonstrate that ArcIoT helps users control devices in everyday environments accurately, responsively and intuitively.