Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! - Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, and Philips partner to standardize the smarthome

rcmaehl · December 18, 2019

Sources:
Apple

Summary:

The big names in smarthome devices have apparently come together to standardize their devices, called Project Connected Home over IP. Fragmentation shall be no more! (including data collection)

Media (Click to enlarge):
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Quotes/Excerpts:

Quote

Amazon, Google, Apple and the Zigbee Alliance on Wednesday announced a rare partnership that’s focused on making smart homes easier for everyone. According to September figures from IDC, the “worldwide market for smart home devices is expected to grow 23.5% year over year in 2019 to nearly 815 million device shipments.” That figure is expected to grow to 1.39 billion devices in 2023. For that to happen, and for consumers to keep their sanity, consumers are going to need some sort of standard that gets everything talking to one another. Today, you might walk into a store and buy a smart lock for your home. But you’d have to figure out if you need to buy a lock that works with Amazon Echo (which uses various standards including Zigbee), Google Home or Apple HomeKit. The new standard aims to fix those problems. It’s called “Project Connected Home over IP” and it will work to create a new standard for the smart home so that people can buy products knowing that they’ll work with the systems they have at home, and that they’re secure. “The project is built around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use,” the companies said in a press release. “By building upon Internet Protocol (IP), the project aims to enable communication across smart home devices, mobile apps and cloud services and to define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification.” Zigbee Alliance companies that are already creating products will also contribute. They include, among others, Samsung SmartThings, Schneider Electric, Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), IKEA, NXP Semiconductors and Resideo. The group will focus first on physical safety smart home devices, such as smoke alarms and CO sensors, smart doors and locks, security systems, electrical plugs, window shades and HVAC controls before expanding into other types of devices and commercial solutions. The group is working to release a draft specification and preliminary open source materials late next year. It’s unclear when the first products will be on the market.

My Thoughts:

Halle-freaking-lujah! It's about time. I no longer have to worry about brand/company loyalty when creating a smarthome, it's about time if they want better adoption across the board. Regardless, this will likely come with the downside of with increased compatibility will come increased data collection and sharing by all involved. Only time will tell.