Currently, there are so many platforms and options to choose from when it comes to automating your home with smart home devices. There is something for everyone no matter how big or small you’d like your setup to be. However, these options don’t always talk to each other if you’d like to mix and match devices from different platforms. This makes it difficult when it comes to expanding your setup to cover unique functions that your native setup might not offer a solution for.
There are ways of bringing some of these together using third-party devices/services, like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT and more. Or, you can buy into a hub that supports multiple technologies (protocols) like the Vera hubs, Hubitat, and other similar options. However, this can still require a lot of trial and error to get everything to work together. This isn’t something novice or intermediate users are always willing to dabble in. So why isn’t there a standard for the smart home so that all devices can come together peacefully?
Major companies are joining together to answer this question and develop an open standard. These companies include Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance. They are hoping to create a standard that can be adopted by any company which will allow devices to natively speak to each other. The standard would be royalty-free, making it more enticing for companies to jump on board.
Companies that are already part of the Zigbee Alliance are already signed up to be involved, including Legrand, IKEA, Samsung, Signify (Philips Hue) and more.
This would make it incredibly easier to secure smart home technologies since it will lessen the gap between proprietary technologies. With fewer proprietary platforms out there, it could decrease the number of vulnerabilities due to a smaller level of support each platform has to develop to support other services (like Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Philips Hue, etc). Simple code is easier to re-enforce than a cluster(censored) of chaos. This could also mean smarter compatibility and features between devices, especially with the push toward smarter AI.
You can learn more by visiting the group’s website here: connectedhomeip.com
