Designing a smart home: what are the options for connecting different devices to each other?
For some time now, technology has allowed you to control your home from your smartphone or tablet. In the past few years, floods of various devices have hit the western markets, and at the same time a significant part of them allows you to assemble a DIY smart home without having an engineering background. If you decide on this, you will need to first think about how you will combine the devices, i.e. to think over the design of the future system, otherwise you simply get into a mess.
The appearance of Apple HomeKit and its analogues makes it possible to combine devices that communicate with each other in one home ecosystem. But at the moment, universal standards have not been developed for a variety of devices, which somewhat slows down the development of the industry as a whole.
The easiest way is to give an example of many standards for the most familiar part of the smart home to the user - this is a heating system, thermostats for which have been used for a long time and in almost every home in the USA and Europe, so they are familiar to the end user. Perhaps the most popular because of its appearance is Nest, which offers smart fire alarms and thermostats. However, there are still about half a dozen similar solutions, none of which imply interchangeability of components. So, British Gas launched a large advertising company for its Hive system earlier this year. And there are at least three other alternatives - Lyric, Tado, and Passiv Systems. All of them are designed to control the heating system and at the same time they use different protocols, which means that their components are incompatible with each other.
If you ignore the heating system, everything will become much more interesting. Already now you can find smart kettles, coffee machines, watering sensors and washing machines that can be controlled from a smartphone. This is already a lot, although the Internet of things has promised us much more. But here's the problem: not the fact that they will all communicate in a single system. Most of all chances are that each gadget will live its own life in a separate application, such as a Samsung washing machine. Is it convenient that it will respond, wherever you are on the planet, to launch a wash on your team? Conveniently. But is it convenient to switch between applications, as if delving into a poorly tidied closet in order to launch a particular device?
One option to reconcile devices and sensors is to use a hub for a smart home. For example, the Wink hub is compatible with almost all leading brands. Thus, LED-lamps with built-in sensors and control from GE or Philipps, the same Nest, Quirky or Tapt switches - all of them can be controlled from a single application or from a special wall panel Wink Relay Controller. The Wink hub supports Bluetooth, Z-Wave®, ZigBee®, Wi-Fi®, Lutron® Clear Connect®.
The Insteon hub is also gaining popularity and its developers are developing their own product line. Recently, the hub comes with built-in Apple's HomeKit. This integration allows you to use voice control with Siri to control your home devices.
Alternatively, Z-Wave, a wireless automation protocol that uses a frequency of 908.42 MHz, is gaining popularity. Already more than a thousand names of devices work on this protocol. This protocol uses cellular technology, which implies that a given command is transmitted through all devices until it reaches the device to which it is addressed. This allows her to use little electricity and gives ample opportunities for the automation of even large houses. Most often, battery-powered devices are used to work with the protocol.
The open standard ZigBee protocol for the Internet of things also consumes little power and supports mesh technology. The ZigBee Alliance is working on its standard, improving it and aiming to give the most convenient opportunity for devices to interact with each other (interoperability).
Other systems and standards are fighting for a place under the sun. Who will take a large share of the market - time will tell.
Of course, all devices could be combined via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It would seem, why invent new standards. But the problem is that, for example, the success of Wi-Fi turned out to be its Achilles heel. Combined into one Wi-Fi network, many devices reduce the efficiency of the entire system. In addition, unlike new standards that can control battery-powered devices, Wi-Fi “eats” energy. Therefore, it can’t be used for a large smart home, many devices and, finally, battery-powered devices - namely, for example, it is customary to make smart door locks on them.
Bluetooth, in turn, is great, but it also requires more energy than new standards and has a longer response delay.
When developing your own system in which you want to include smart devices, take into account the difference in standards and either select the appropriate hub, or choose devices that use one of the new standards, which saves energy and is designed specifically for use in smart homes. Then you can manage all devices from one convenient application - for example, the iRidium Mobile application , which not only allows you to create any design from a simple visual designer, but also has an interface in Russian.
On the Internet of things as in life: communications should not be random
The appearance of Apple HomeKit and its analogues makes it possible to combine devices that communicate with each other in one home ecosystem. But at the moment, universal standards have not been developed for a variety of devices, which somewhat slows down the development of the industry as a whole.
War of standards
The easiest way is to give an example of many standards for the most familiar part of the smart home to the user - this is a heating system, thermostats for which have been used for a long time and in almost every home in the USA and Europe, so they are familiar to the end user. Perhaps the most popular because of its appearance is Nest, which offers smart fire alarms and thermostats. However, there are still about half a dozen similar solutions, none of which imply interchangeability of components. So, British Gas launched a large advertising company for its Hive system earlier this year. And there are at least three other alternatives - Lyric, Tado, and Passiv Systems. All of them are designed to control the heating system and at the same time they use different protocols, which means that their components are incompatible with each other.
If you ignore the heating system, everything will become much more interesting. Already now you can find smart kettles, coffee machines, watering sensors and washing machines that can be controlled from a smartphone. This is already a lot, although the Internet of things has promised us much more. But here's the problem: not the fact that they will all communicate in a single system. Most of all chances are that each gadget will live its own life in a separate application, such as a Samsung washing machine. Is it convenient that it will respond, wherever you are on the planet, to launch a wash on your team? Conveniently. But is it convenient to switch between applications, as if delving into a poorly tidied closet in order to launch a particular device?
Truce
One option to reconcile devices and sensors is to use a hub for a smart home. For example, the Wink hub is compatible with almost all leading brands. Thus, LED-lamps with built-in sensors and control from GE or Philipps, the same Nest, Quirky or Tapt switches - all of them can be controlled from a single application or from a special wall panel Wink Relay Controller. The Wink hub supports Bluetooth, Z-Wave®, ZigBee®, Wi-Fi®, Lutron® Clear Connect®.
The Insteon hub is also gaining popularity and its developers are developing their own product line. Recently, the hub comes with built-in Apple's HomeKit. This integration allows you to use voice control with Siri to control your home devices.
Alternatively, Z-Wave, a wireless automation protocol that uses a frequency of 908.42 MHz, is gaining popularity. Already more than a thousand names of devices work on this protocol. This protocol uses cellular technology, which implies that a given command is transmitted through all devices until it reaches the device to which it is addressed. This allows her to use little electricity and gives ample opportunities for the automation of even large houses. Most often, battery-powered devices are used to work with the protocol.
The open standard ZigBee protocol for the Internet of things also consumes little power and supports mesh technology. The ZigBee Alliance is working on its standard, improving it and aiming to give the most convenient opportunity for devices to interact with each other (interoperability).
Other systems and standards are fighting for a place under the sun. Who will take a large share of the market - time will tell.
Of course, all devices could be combined via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It would seem, why invent new standards. But the problem is that, for example, the success of Wi-Fi turned out to be its Achilles heel. Combined into one Wi-Fi network, many devices reduce the efficiency of the entire system. In addition, unlike new standards that can control battery-powered devices, Wi-Fi “eats” energy. Therefore, it can’t be used for a large smart home, many devices and, finally, battery-powered devices - namely, for example, it is customary to make smart door locks on them.
Bluetooth, in turn, is great, but it also requires more energy than new standards and has a longer response delay.
Summary
When developing your own system in which you want to include smart devices, take into account the difference in standards and either select the appropriate hub, or choose devices that use one of the new standards, which saves energy and is designed specifically for use in smart homes. Then you can manage all devices from one convenient application - for example, the iRidium Mobile application , which not only allows you to create any design from a simple visual designer, but also has an interface in Russian.
On the Internet of things as in life: communications should not be random