‘Home Automation is Experiencing Dramatic Growth’ Group Says
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) announced today that it has launched a new “Working Group” to develop new technical standards for the industry in order to facilitate greater device interoperability in home automation systems. The announcement was made today at the Technology & Standards Forum the group is holding now in Seattle.
What does this mean & how can you get involved?…See more below…
The new working group will be known as the “Device Interoperability Working Group or R7 WG17. The CEA is seeking interested parties to join the working group and its parent committee.
The goal, besides engendering greater device interoperability, is to develop a standard that will “reduce the time and effort required to develop software applications that provide consumers with access to their home automation devices and systems.”
Looking for users…
The working group says that it is very interested in adding members known as “users” – those individuals or companies that acquire home automation devices from those companies that create them. The input from users could be very important to ensure that a standard is achieved that works for all parties.
The CEA says that, “Home automation is experiencing dramatic growth, in part due to the availability of manufacturer and third-party applications that enable consumers to monitor and control devices from different manufacturers anywhere, anytime from their mobile devices.”
Getting app happy…
But for this to work, each app developer must create an application programming interface covering the specific elements of each device. But for this API to work correctly, the manufacturer needs to be involved…and there needs to be complete testing to ensure compatibility. Some developers skip this step and just use open source APIs or try to develop their own with manufacturer input – potentially creating problems down the road. This new working group will set standards to create a system that works well for all parties.
Want to join this committee and get involved creating this standard? Contact Leslie King at the CEA at lking@ce.org.
Leave a Reply