Rivals focus on standard to connect smart things

Apple, Alphabet’s Google and Amazon.com — three of the biggest smart-home and voice-assistant providers — are joining forces to make internet-connected homes easier to set up and safer to use.

The rivals announced Wednesday that they’re working with the Zigbee Alliance, a foundation that promotes standards for the internet of Things and its members, including Samsung Electronics Co., Somfy SA, and IKEA, on a new standard that will ensure their products work with each other.

While an increasing portion of the home can now be controlled by a voice-activated speaker or remote app, from thermostats to lights and even refrigerators, “the lack of an industrywide connectivity standard leaves people confused and frustrated when trying to understand what devices work with each smart home ecosystem,” Nik Sathe and Grant Erickson, engineers at Google’s Nest unit, wrote in a statement.

“It also places a heavy burden on manufacturers to make sure all devices are compatible with each other,” they wrote.

Amazon and Google have relatively open systems already, which have allowed tens of thousands of third-party devices to link up with their smart speakers.

But Apple only supports via its HomeKit standard.

The global smart-home market is projected to grow to $174.2 billion by 2025, according to MarketWatch, up from $55.7 billion in 2016.

Apple said the project is built around “a shared belief that smart home devices should be secure, reliable, and seamless to use.”

But the move could also raise privacy and security questions.

The new alliance is aiming to have its new joint protocol in place by the end of 2020.

afew hundred