Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance have announced a working group, under the name Connected Home over IP, to develop and promote a new, royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products.
Security will be a fundamental design tenet, the group said. Zigbee Alliance board members Ikea, Legrand, NXP Semiconductors, Schneider Electric, Signify, and Silicon Labs, among others, are also on board.
The project aims to enable IP communication across smart home devices, mobile apps, and cloud services. The group will define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification.
It will take an open-source approach to development of a new, unified connectivity protocol. The group said “market-tested smart home-tech” from its members will inform and accelerate developnent of the protocol.
The group said in a statement: “The planned protocol will complement existing technologies, and working group members encourage device manufacturers to continue innovating using technologies available today.”
The likes of Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant will use the protocol, as standard. Other device makers, silicon providers, and other developers have been invited to contribute to the standard.
