Home Devices United: Project Connected Home over IP
The de facto IoT protocol for home technologies
With smart speakers consistently dropping in price there is no doubt about their massive adoption. However there are a number of issues to address with using them due to complications in configuring the speakers to work with Smart Home devices like light switches, plugs and thermostats.
Many Smart Home devices use proprietary protocols today, requiring them to be tethered to a home network using dedicated proxies and translators; Google gadgets work with with Google Home network, Amazon devices work with with Alexa. With these walled gardens of protocols, it is a User Experience nightmare to choose and install Smart Home devices. It is as if they all have different wall plugs and each house must choose a plug type.
To resolve this UX obstacle to home automation, Amazon, Apple and Google came to what appeared to be a truce in December 2019: They announced that they were working together on a standard to help make smart home products compatible with one another — the Project Connected Home over IP
Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance joined together to promote the formation of the Working Group. Zigbee Alliance board member companies IKEA, Legrand, NXP Semiconductors, Resideo, Samsung SmartThings, Schneider Electric, Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), Silicon Labs, Somfy, and Wulian are also on board to join the Working Group and contribute to the project.
The goal of the Connected Home over IP project is to simplify development for manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers. The project is built around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use. 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.
The project aims to make it easier for device manufacturers to build devices that are compatible with smart home and voice services such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, and others. The planned protocol will complement existing technologies, and Working Group members encourage device manufacturers to continue innovating using technologies available today.
With this initiative, developers, manufacturers and consumers will benefit. Manufacturers will be assured of a wider client base compatible with all big tech home networks and users can buy devices with the certainty that they will function with their current home network.
The Project intends to start with components of market-tested technologies, modified as needed. The Working Group has a goal to release a draft specification and a preliminary reference open source implementation in late 2020.