BETTER LIVING THROUGH SMARTER TECHNOLOGY
HOME LIFE
SYSTEMS
EXPLAINED
SMART HOME
Just what’s connecting your hardware together
— and should you really care?BY ALEX COXonnectivity divides us, drawing a line
between those things which can talk
to each other and those things which
simply don’t know — or don’t want to
know — what everything else is trying to say. It
sums up the most frustrating part of the smart home
landscape: you just can’t link everything together.
But why? A networking protocol is, after all,
technically independent of hardware. It’s simply
the set of rules and procedures used to exchange
data between devices. If both ends of the
connection are equipped with the same set of rules,
they speak the same language. Simple. In some
areas we have settled on particular protocols which
make sense: computer networking, for example,
tends to lean on the Open Systems Interconnection,
which comprises TCP/IP, HTTPS, DNS et al; this
standardization is what make the internet possible.
On top of this, we’ve generally settled on hardware
for certain tasks. There aren’t multiple commercial
wireless networking protocols Ľghting for your
Mac’s attention, for example, we’re all be able to
get online with some variant of 802.11.
The problem is, smart home rules are more
complicated than simply sending the right
messages in the right format. If a smart home
manufacturer decides to use a closed API, others
won’t have access to relevant commands. Ifa manufacturer decides to use an unusual radio
frequency, others won’t be able to lock in to it even
if they know what to say. This is no coincidence
— it’s often deliberate.
The reason the smart home landscape is so
fractured is that there’s a beneĽt to manufacturers
to use one system or another. Perhaps one system
suits the physical makeup of a product, the kind of
connection required, or the price point. Maybe it’s
a system the creators have expertize in, or are
otherwise inľuenced to use by their cabal of
like–minded companies. A system may be chosen
simply because it makes connecting to it more
diL·cult — there are obvious beneĽts to tying
customers in to one family of products rather than
allowing them to buy from a rival, however
bone-headed that might be in the context of the
smart home. That may not be the case forever —
see “What’s next” on p65 — but let’s break down
the common systems and beneĽts on oļer today.Z–WAVE
You’ll see a lot of products which use Z–Wave to
communicate, even if they don’t explicitly say so.
Portions of its speciĽcations were released into
the public domain in 2016 and it’s supported by the
700+ member Z–Wave Alliance, which includes
companies like Huawei, Fibaro, and SmartThings.C
Home Life
62 SEP 2020 maclife.com