A remote residential control system enables home users to remotely manage devices at their homes. These devices may include energy management, security surveillance, household appliances, consumer electronics, etc. This system involves technologies in home automation, home networking, and interfacing a home network with external networks. However, lacking a single standard poses a big challenge to the design of such a system. This thesis proposed three methods of turning an IP Set-Top Box into a remote residential control platform. Additionally, future trends are discussed. Various technologies in the fields mentioned above are also examined. / Ett system för fjärrstyrning av intelligenta hem (remote residential control system) är ett system som möjliggör för hemanvändare att på distans övervaka och styra utrustning i hemmet. Denna utrustning kan vara energiövervakning, säkerhetsutrustning, hushållsapparater, konsumentelektronik, etc. Det saknas dock en gemensam standard, vilket gör det till en stor utmaning att konstruera ett sådant system. I detta examensarbete föreslås tre sätt att göra en set-top box till en plattform för fjärrstyrning av intelligenta hem. Framtida trender diskuteras också. Olika tekniker inom nämnda områden undersöks[.]

<p>An IPTV Set-top box enables the possibility of doing much more than decodingtelevision content. Its Ethernet interface gives it the same possibilities to communicatewith the outside world as any network device. This enables a wide rangeof services from internet radio to acting as a digital media receiver in your homenetwork. These highly interactive services increase the demands for responsiveand visually attractive user interfaces.Due to the cost-sensitive market of IPTV STBs the preferred platform to developthe user interface is the HTML browser as it allows for fast developmenttimes and low costs. As a W3C standard it also offers high portability and hardwareabstraction making it easy to use more than one STB vendor. The cons ofHTML based GUIs are low performance and lacklustre graphics.This thesis aims to find out if SVG can be used to achieve rich, scalable and animatedgraphics with high performance and still keep the attractive characteristicsof HTML.To do this much effort was put into identifying the strenghts and weaknesses ofSVG. The lessons learned resulted in an SVG AJAX framework called TOIXSVGmaking it possible to develop SVG GUIs in the same manner as modern Rich InternetApplications, enabling component reuse to make sure development time scalespreferably with the scope and complexity of the user interface. Along with theframework several new widgets had to be developed to achieve the targeted functionality.As a proof of concept a mock-up GUI was created with the frameworkand widgets.</p>

An IPTV Set-top box enables the possibility of doing much more than decodingtelevision content. Its Ethernet interface gives it the same possibilities to communicatewith the outside world as any network device. This enables a wide rangeof services from internet radio to acting as a digital media receiver in your homenetwork. These highly interactive services increase the demands for responsiveand visually attractive user interfaces.Due to the cost-sensitive market of IPTV STBs the preferred platform to developthe user interface is the HTML browser as it allows for fast developmenttimes and low costs. As a W3C standard it also offers high portability and hardwareabstraction making it easy to use more than one STB vendor. The cons ofHTML based GUIs are low performance and lacklustre graphics.This thesis aims to find out if SVG can be used to achieve rich, scalable and animatedgraphics with high performance and still keep the attractive characteristicsof HTML.To do this much effort was put into identifying the strenghts and weaknesses ofSVG. The lessons learned resulted in an SVG AJAX framework called TOIXSVGmaking it possible to develop SVG GUIs in the same manner as modern Rich InternetApplications, enabling component reuse to make sure development time scalespreferably with the scope and complexity of the user interface. Along with theframework several new widgets had to be developed to achieve the targeted functionality.As a proof of concept a mock-up GUI was created with the frameworkand widgets.