Standard is key?

The home automation market could see a major breakthrough once a unified standard of communication between devices is achieved. But is the lack of standardization the only obstacle producers will have to overcome?

By Beata Socha

We have been promised intelligent homes for the past thirty-plus years. The first computers capable of controlling lights and other home devices were already available in the early 1980s. “There’s a book on home automation using the Timex Sinclair 1000, a computer launched in 1982 that had 2 KB of memory! If you could control your home with that thing, why haven’t we come further with the processing power we have available now?” mused Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder of Opera Software, and most recently of Vivaldi Technologies.

Some say a revolution in home automation technology is happening right before our eyes. “Automation has been present for many years. However, it was very complicated and thus expensive and inaccessible to many groups of people,” said Mikołaj Pertek, sales development manager for Poland at Fibaro, one of Poland’s market leaders, which has recently launched its first outpost in Silicon Valley. “Over the years many barriers to the development of intelligent homes have been overcome. New wireless communication protocols have been developed, data transfer has accelerated, electronic components have become more compact, manufacturing technologies have been improved,” he explained and added, “Finally, the whole world started using smart phones which are used as control panels. As a result, we now have an IoT revolution.”

Others say the development in the home automation department will be more gradual. “There will be no revolution, only evolution which is already taking place,” said Marcin Fryszkowski from FDtech, a Wrocław-based home automation systems producer. “In 2014 there were 2 billion devices connected to the internet, in 2020 there will be 8 billion. Last year the average household used 10 control devices (remotes, smart phones, tablets, cameras, control panels), and the number doubles every three years. This growing trend brings us closer to an omnipresent internet,” he summarized.

The market is clearly growing. It is no longer only the most upmarket and luxury apartments that are furnished with intelligent home systems. Mainstream developments increasingly boast home automation solutions as well.

Yet, there is still a widespread conviction that the big breakthrough that will make intelligent home systems commonplace in most homes is still ahead of us. Von Tetzchner considers the lack of standardization to be the root of the problem. Consider the internet. “The reason why the Web is so successful is because it was done at CERN and the guys responsible for it decided not to patent it. They decided that everyone could develop the Web, and they were just providing a great tool,” he explained.

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Standard wars

There are many who believe that at least some form of standardization in intelligent home solutions will eventually emerge out of free market solutions. “Several major producers in the market, including ABB, Bosch and Cisco, have undertaken to create a common standard. They called their project Mosaiq. It is a fully open platform for intelligent homes, which – thanks to the co-operation of many partners, could be the foundation for a future innovative standard,” said Fryszkowski.

But, considering how long it is taking the market to find a common standard, maybe it could use a push, or at least a gentle nudge, to get to the desired place, like was the case with smart phone chargers. Back in the early 2000s there were several proprietary charger standards available on the market. Even though some standardization of chargers towards the micro USB port started as early as the mid-2000s, it wasn’t until the EU’s 2009 initiative, aimed at cutting back on electronic waste by making micro-USB ports a common external power supply standard, that all (but one) producers of mobile devices saw the benefits of conforming. Granted, a common standard meant your client could easily switch to another producer, but given how quickly the technology was developing back then, it could also mean you had better chances of regaining ground with a new product launch. Unsurprisingly, the only straggler remaining is Apple with its Lightning port charger, which many claim to be superior to USB. The giant may be forced to comply with the standard as soon as 2017, at least in the EU market. But based on how it has observed (or ignored) other EU regulations, e.g. warranty laws, it may take more time.

There are plenty of examples where a single standard eventually prevailed over its competitors. Standard wars have been commonplace since the late 19th century, when the standard rail gauge that was dominant in the US railroad system eliminated the wider “Russian” gauge that had initially been preferred in the South. Similarly, Tomas Edison’s alternating current managed to push direct current out of the market in 1880s, albeit with some controversial scare-tactic marketing. Since then, we’ve seen many, sometimes superior, technologies succumb to a competitor, like Betamax to VHS in the 1980s or even more recently HD DVD to Blu-ray.

Last man standing?

Somehow, home automation seems resilient to the “winner-takes-all” rule of technology standards and several solutions have been developing without a single victor coming out on top. “Naturally, users don’t want to have dozens of different applications and remote controls. … There will certainly be more standardization in time, but eventually there will be several solutions on the market that will develop in parallel,” stated Pertek.

Fryszkowski, on the other hand, draws a clear distinction between home automation systems and Internet of Things technology and claims that while “devices created with the Internet of Things in mind still lack standardization, … in the case of intelligent homes, standardization is commonplace.” He added that, “in the home automation market there are many producers active in each home automation system (for example there are over 300 manufacturers making devices for the KNX system, and several dozen producers are active in the Z-Wave and ZigBee systems).”

What effects?

One reason why there is no single unified standard in sight (and there may never be) could be what economists call “network effects.” Simply put, it means that “early choices, such as the QWERTY typewriter keyboard, lock in the market [making] new entry, especially against established networks with proprietary technology ... often nearly impossible,” wrote Paul Klemperer, member of UK Competition Commission and Edgeworth Professor of Economics, University of Oxford.

It is clearly imperative that people sending each other e-mails use the same protocols. Similarly, it seemed reasonable to replace your Betamax recorder with a VHS one to be able to tap into the collection of local video rental stores (back when those still existed). But is it really necessary for my mobile phone-controlled home automation system to be compatible with my neighbor’s? Given how much fuss has been created around the security of these systems, making all systems compatible might even be perceived as unwise.

The human factor

Perhaps standardization is not the missing component for the home automation market to gain momentum. The real barriers could be much more prosaic and simultaneously more difficult to address. How do I know that the automatic lock on the door only opens for the people it is supposed to? What if it is hacked and overridden? These are some of the questions consumers of home automation technologies tend to ask.

Producers are fully aware that security is essential and they are making it their no. 1 priority. The system offered by Fibaro is “based on the Z-Wave protocol, which has top-notch security features, and the data is stored in the control unit which can be disconnected from the internet if need be,” explained Pertek.

Then there is also the issue of privacy. Tell someone that their home will recognize their voice and act on vocal commands such as “turn up the music” and “make coffee, black, two sugars” and they swoon at the wealth of possibilities. But tell them that the system could potentially be used as a hot mic to record every conversation they have inside your home, and they are the first to join the Luddite camp.

Given all the bad press surrounding surveillance methods, producers may have a hard time convincing their clients that they are safe and their systems offer absolute privacy. As much as possible in today’s world, at least. After all, your mobile phone can be used to listen in on your private conversations, even when turned off. Perhaps, one day there will be a market for intelligent home systems that are furnished with wireless signal jamming technology. U