Project Connected Home intends to develop an open, IP-based standard for devices to simplify their development and improve compatibility for customers.
Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance have announced a new working group that plans to develop and promote the adoption of a new, royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products.
Security will be a fundamental design tenet.
Other companies
Zigbee Alliance board member companies such as IKEA, Legrand, NXP Semiconductors, Resideo, Samsung SmartThings, Schneider Electric, Signify (formerly Philips Lighting), Silicon Labs, Somfy, and Wulian will join the working group and contribute to the project.
The project is based on a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use, the proponents say.
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 industry working group will take an open-source approach to the development and implementation of a new, unified connectivity protocol.
The project intends to use contributions from market-tested smart home technologies from Amazon, Apple, Google, Zigbee Alliance, and others to accelerate the development of the protocol, and deliver benefits faster to manufacturers and consumers.
Work with existing tech
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 now.
Project Connected Home over IP welcomes device manufacturers, silicon providers, and other developers from across the smart home industry to participate in and contribute to the standard, it said in a statement.