How Important Is Smart Home Interoperability for the Future of Home Automation?
In the smart home space, smart home interoperability means different things to different groups. Consumers want choice, flexibility, simplicity of setup, and a sense of security that their devices can’t be hacked. Most importantly, they want devices to “just work”.
Product manufacturers, on the other hand, want to cover the largest markets through a platform approach. They don’t want to require separate SKUs for each partner, plus they want to reduce resource costs. The IoT industry, on the other hand, expects technologies to converge and coexist, which is critical to driving the market. Multiple competing technologies and a fragmented marketplace not only do not promote growth but also become a hindrance.
Implementing Smart Home Interoperability Standards
Consumer demand spawns interoperability standards
As the saying goes, “Water rises above water.” Standards can expand the market and make waves, which is exactly what all equipment manufacturers expect.
For example, before the advent of the Matter standard, device manufacturers could only build solutions for one partner at a time or build a full stack solution themselves. With Matter, they can invest in building a platform to support multiple partners. Because consumers can connect their smart home devices to any system or platform that supports Matter, millions of Matter smart home devices are already in homes, and the number is climbing, creating a larger market for device manufacturers.
Figure 1: User Demand for Device Compatibility and Smart Home Interoperability
Standards can be a growth multiplier
Some believe that the adoption of standards and the ability to create differentiated features cannot go hand in hand. But in reality, standards can drive growth multipliers. Standards open up channels and make everything simpler, safer, more reliable, and more versatile. It is on this foundation that differentiating features can be built.
The Matter smart home protocol standardizes device communication. This standardization brings compatibility and smart home interoperability to different brands of devices and to the various mainstream smart home platforms that control them. Device manufacturers can then focus their resources and funds on innovation to create differentiated experiences that bring value to users.
Interoperability provides the foundation for services
The smart home interoperability of smart home devices from different brands and platforms lays the foundation for building services. This applies not only to the DIY market, but also to service providers. When a certain level of smart home interoperability is achieved, more smart devices can connect and communicate with each other and provide meaningful, comprehensive data across local networks. Organizations can use this data to build services such as information security, energy management, or elder care that can have real value and positive impact.
How equipment manufacturers can differentiate themselves
Inevitably, the question arises of how device manufacturers can differentiate themselves while following standards. The answer is to differentiate through the way users interact with their smart homes. More connected devices mean more data that can be used to deliver intelligent, automated home experiences.
Do standards create opportunities for low-cost commodity equipment? Absolutely. But that’s not a bad thing, as it opens the door for companies to enter the market and launch new, innovative products that increase the appeal of Matter-compatible smart home systems. Do they limit your ability to differentiate? Absolutely not. If you need proof, look at the impact of Bluetooth on the audio industry. Will the price of wireless headphones drop to $10? Of course, it might! But that doesn’t limit the opportunity for Sony, Bose? or Apple to make high-demand, differentiated products based on standards.
The Challenge of Achieving Smart Home Interoperability
(manufacturing, production etc) costs
One of the main concerns about smart home interoperability is the added cost. But I’d like to ask the rhetorical question: what is the cost of not achieving smart home interoperability? Consumers get frustrated when devices don’t work correctly or are challenging to set up and use. Then they write bad reviews and stop buying that brand of device, and the brand image of the device service company inevitably suffers.
The cost of using proprietary technologies is also high. These technologies require higher investments to maintain, support and evolve with industry trends. With smart home interoperability standards, companies can leverage the industry’s collective resources to address industry challenges. There are indeed costs associated with adopting standards and obtaining certification for them. Still, the total cost of ownership is lower because the additional costs of creating multiple SKUs for each smart home platform and maintaining proprietary technologies are eliminated.
Standards and Design Flexibility
Since its inception, the Thread Program Group has developed standards based on market needs and member feedback. Members of such organizations include representatives of businesses along the value chain on a global scale, providing unique insights into market needs and business challenges.
CSA and the Thread Program Group have a process and procedures in place to facilitate consensus-based decision-making. When companies join standards organizations or work with deeply engaged smart home partners, they are able to develop standards that benefit individual companies and the industry as a whole.
Transition to new standards & coexistence with other standards
When new standards are introduced, there is an obvious challenge for companies to transition to the new standard while coexisting with existing products and product portfolios that may use other standards or proprietary technologies. With respect to Matter, there are several critical points in terms of how to address this issue:
Matter and Thread come with open-source implementations that provide developers with more tools in the toolbox, as they not only write specifications but also come with forums for deploying the technology.
Matter understands this challenge and solves it by including bridges in the supported device types and features at launch. Matter bridges enable non-Internet Protocol (IP) devices to become part of the Matter smart home system.
Delivering on the promise of smart home interoperability
So, what holds the most promise for advancing smart home interoperability? Matter is a connectivity protocol that I think will unlock significant opportunities for innovation in edge computing. Matter is backed by a strong base of all the major smart home platform providers. It is also based on modern, proven technologies such as IP, which brings flexibility and efficiency for integration and coexistence with other technologies.
For example, Matter defines a common language for apps and smart devices to communicate with each other and uses existing technologies to enable interconnectivity, such as Thread for low-power mesh networking needs and Wi-Fi for high-bandwidth usage scenarios. Matter also uses proven security standards for its secure configuration and device authentication processes.
Figure 2: Matter Smart Home Network Topology
Matter enables smart home interoperability, and solving global issues such as energy management/sustainability, secure networks, etc., becomes possible.
The matter is developed based on the existing IP network and can run on multiple wireless protocols, including WiFi, Thread, and Zigbee. Zigbee is still very popular in smart homes, you can have a closer look at the benefits.
looking forward
What we’re seeing now is just the beginning of the industry’s evolution. As Matter becomes more prevalent in devices and home network infrastructures, and as the breadth of device types and capabilities expands, there is much to look forward to for consumers and the industry as a whole.
For device vendors and technology companies, the specific direction of innovation for future versions of Matter is closely linked to the market solutions on the ground. Continued attention needs to be paid to realizing smart home interoperability between different brands and types of devices to improve the user experience.
Matter focuses on some of the more traditional smart home devices, such as sockets, light bulbs, etc. It is hoped that Matter can extend the definition of smart home more and that anything related to the home, or anything that connects to the home, will become the scope of support for Matter in the next 10~20 years. For example, air purifiers and other new home appliances, and even Matter, can help people manage their health through devices in the fitness field in the future, and they are on the way to innovation and improvement.”
