admin In an effort to avoid a turf war that limits the market for gadgets powered by Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant; Amazon, Google, and Apple have formed a rare association to improve smart home devices.
These companies have agreed to collaborate with each other and members of the Zigbee Alliance, which includes dozens of companies including Samsung, Ikea, and Comcast.
They announced a project to build a common standard so that connected devices could be operated by any voice assistant on Wednesday. “The project is built around a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use,” they said.
The market for smart devices is expected to grow 14.4 per cent a year to 1.4bn shipped units in 2023, according to the International Data Corporation. Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said the move would benefit consumers, who will not have to worry about which smart light, thermostat or fridge will be compatible with their voice assistant.
“This is really no threat to anybody,” she said. “It will make it easier for consumers [so they] don’t have to figure out what works with what and ‘how do I do it?’”
“Right now if you buy a fridge that works with Alexa and a microwave that works with Google, the two are not necessarily talking with each other,” Ms Milanesi said. “It’s not necessarily that you’re going to mix and match, but if you buy from brands that make bets the various products can still work together and your house really becomes more homogeneous.”
The market for smart devices has also been hampered by concerns over privacy, after it emerged that tech companies relied on human workers to transcribe certain requests. Half of consumers “do not trust voice assistants with their personal data,” according to Capgemini, a tech consultancy.
The Connected Home alliance said using standardised certifications should improve security, which they call “a fundamental design tenet”. No specifics were mentioned, however.
Avast, a cyber security group, said this year that two out of every five households worldwide already have five or more devices connected to the internet — and at least one is vulnerable to cyber attacks. The alliance said a shared, open source approach to building smart devices should “accelerate the development” of a smart home protocol — a set of rules governing format — that will “deliver benefits to manufacturers and consumers faster.”
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