No smart security without IoT protocols

Modern smart home security owes much of its success to advances in IoT protocols. These communication channels enhance interoperability and enable thousands of devices to “speak” and interact with each other — a critical requirement for any smart system.

The adoption of a single common protocol is the key to positive customer experiences. Millions of connected devices, products and services are sold every year, using many different communication protocols. A single protocol would enable all of these devices to “understand” each other, work seamlessly together and enable consumers to handle device integration and technical support issues more easily. Furthermore, the adoption of a common protocol would prevent distrust toward smart devices and the companies that provide and support them.

The adoption of a common IoT protocol would greatly enhance interoperability, enabling the home security market to unlock huge opportunities for growth, such as:

• Raising the home security customer experience to a whole new level. The customer connects a device to a smart controller, creates rules-based scenarios and the possibilities are endless — users can set up lights to turn on automatically whenever a window sensor detects an intrusion, avoiding a possible burglary.
• Rules triggering specific actions at various times during the day. Rules such as opening window blinds in the morning and closing them at night, turning on the lights in the late afternoon or activating the garden sprinklers every other day can help make an empty house appear occupied.
• Turning traditional security systems into smart devices. Good old-fashioned door locks, doorbells, garage doors and internet protocol cameras could turn into state-of-the art security systems overnight when enhanced with IoT protocols. Homeowners could control their homes from their vacation suite on the other side of the world using only their smartphone. They could allow access to a predetermined list of people, let a technician in and then lock the door afterward, see what time their kids get home from school and configure locks to work in tandem with the thermostat, house lights or cameras — all with just a light tap of the finger.
  

  Source: Stockvault

• Enabling devices from different vendors to work together seamlessly. The adoption of a common protocol would benefit providers and customers alike. The adoption of a high-certification, standard-adhering technology, like Z-Wave, Zigbee or Google Thread, would give security providers a wide range of options in selecting the smart devices they sell to their customers. It would also allow them to offer customers easy DIY systems that would expand to meet their needs.

While technology giants, such as Google, Amazon and Apple, want to develop protocols that will work only with their own devices, this will not fulfill the exciting potential for the industry. Only the ability to speak a common language and enhance communication between devices from multiple vendors will.

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