Apple, Amazon, Google and others to develop open standard for smart home devices

Future smart home devices can work seamlessly regardless of mobile platforms thanks to an open-source standard that tech giants are developing.

Amazon, Apple, Google and the Zigbee Alliance announced a new working group, Project Connected Home over Internet Protocol (IP), to develop and promote the adoption of a new, royalty-free connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home devices.

Project Connected Home over IP will leverage development work and protocols from existing systems such as Amazon's Alex Smart Home, Apple's HomeKit, Google's Weave, Samsung SmartThings, and Zigbee Alliance's Dotdot data models.

The new standard will work alongside current connectivity protocols (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) and will be based around IP. This will 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.

A draft specification is slated for release in late 2020, so it is likely that smart home devices using the new standard will be launched sometime in 2021.

Source: Apple