Apple, Amazon smart home partnership expects devices by end of 2021

AppleInsider

The "Project CHIP" alliance between Apple, Amazon, and Google, is set to start certifying manufacturers' compatible devices in late 2021, meaning the first may be on sale at the end of the year.

HomeKit

Following their December 2019 announcement, the partnership between all of the major smart home firms, is reportedly expecting bear fruit later in 2021. Alongside Apple, Amazon, and Google, Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) includes the Zigbee Alliance -- which has just revealed a milestone.

As first spotted by The Verge, the Zigbee Alliance has said in a webinar that participating manufacturers are going to get their home devices certified by late 2021. The expected devices include lighting, blinds, door locks, and more, and these may all be available starting in time for the 2021 holidays.

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The smart home companies have been collaborating on simplifying automation, by creating a home networking standard. It would not replace HomeKit, but rather allow communication between different networking technologies.

Those chiefly include using Bluetooth LE for setting up devices, Wi-Fi for streaming video, and also Thread for when devices need to share short bursts of information. Thread is already being increasingly supported, with Apple including it in the HomePod mini, and third-party companies believing it will become significant.

Project CHIP has previously been delayed by the coronavirus. The new detail that certification will start toward the end of 2021, but once new devices support it, manufacturers will also be able to create bridges to help older systems work too.




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[Deleted User]

Common standard for collection of private/sensitive info?

swat671

That's awesome! I really hope that by making it possible to make one IoT "thing" compatible with all three big players, it will HOPEFULLY lead to more, better devices. I hope it will also lead the 3 companies (A, A, G- Apple, Amazon, Google) to step up their game, so to speak, to implement more features on their end. Like Apple adding more options to HomeKit. I also hope that more networking companies get on board as well. I just got some new Linksys WiFi 6 mesh routers for my parents' house last year. Linksys added HomeKit Router support to some of their mesh nodes, but not all of them. I wonder why not? It would make it SO much easier for my parents to control them with Siri. "Hey, Siri, turn on the guest wifi." "Hey Siri, it's dinner, pause network access", etc. Also make it easier for my parents to see stuff on the AppleTV, if they decide to start getting some smart devices like lights/switches, thermostats, or controller for the sprinklers, etc. Another thing I'd like Linksys to implement is support for more options for the USB port on the routers. They are VERY limited in the options. It's hard drives only, and only drives supporting NTFS and FAT. Not very useful for Macs, or for networks that want large drives for, say, NAS. It would be great if they could add better NAS/Sharing options- like not just on the network, but being able to access the HDD over the internet. Maybe being able to use the Files App on the iPhone/iPad to be able to access the NAS, so that I can unload a lot of the photos and 4k video that's clogging up my iPhones storage. But, that's obviously not the point of this specific article. 

StrangeDays

Hubro said:

Common standard for collection of private/sensitive info?

No. Common network communication protocols between devices.

clexman

I love bear fruit!

kkqd1337

Will be interesting to see if this project delivers on its promises 

Japhey

Isn’t Chip support already baked into the HomePod mini? Although I can’t find it now, I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere recently. 

[Deleted User]

Hubro said:

Common standard for collection of private/sensitive info?

I know right! I want Apple and Google out of my Amazon devices automation. Apple is probably desperate about this deal since their automation is the worst/buggiest of them all.

GeorgeBMac

Better late than never....

zinkdifferent

swat671 said:

I just got some new Linksys WiFi 6 mesh routers for my parents' house last year. Linksys added HomeKit Router support to some of their mesh nodes, but not all of them. I wonder why not? It would make it SO much easier for my parents to control them with Siri. "Hey, Siri, turn on the guest wifi." "Hey Siri, it's dinner, pause network access", etc. Also make it easier for my parents to see stuff on the AppleTV, if they decide to start getting some smart devices like lights/switches, thermostats, or controller for the sprinklers, etc. Another thing I'd like Linksys to implement is support for more options for the USB port on the routers. They are VERY limited in the options.

I’ve been very disappointed in linksys’ haphazard support for HomeKit in the Velop family of routers, as well as their terrible app that doesn’t work on iPhone 12 mini (for example) but will work fine on older iPhone SE or iPhone 7. Furthermore the devices’ inability to find the latest firmware updates, and half baked support for HomeKit (so far I have not been able to get any of their routers added to my Home app, no matter what I try). 

danox

Not interested in Google, or Amazon when comes to giving them more info sorry Apple....

cornchip

What is this unholy union?

asdasd

Stopthebully said:

Hubro said:

Common standard for collection of private/sensitive info?

I know right! I want Apple and Google out of my Amazon devices automation. Apple is probably desperate about this deal since their automation is the worst/buggiest of them all.

Pretty desperate enough about the deal to sign up to deal?

asdasd

danox said:

Not interested in Google, or Amazon when comes to giving them more info sorry Apple....

You don't have to. Keep buying Apple. Its just a standardisation, a protocol.  You can buy what you want though.

StrangeDays

Stopthebully said:

Hubro said:

Common standard for collection of private/sensitive info?

I know right! I want Apple and Google out of my Amazon devices automation. Apple is probably desperate about this deal since their automation is the worst/buggiest of them all.

Well, except that that isn't true. HK is the most secure of them all, which is why some hardware manufacturers don't want to implement it. I've been using a score of HK accessories without issue...lights, switches, outlets, sensors, etc. 

[Deleted User]

StrangeDays said:

Hubro said:

Common standard for collection of private/sensitive info?

No. Common network communication protocols between devices.

Well aware of that )

...but smart home/car/iot tech raises serious security and privacy issues, and mixing e.g Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple into one structure turns everything into a folk dance with 4 balalaika orchestras and a tubist.

jeff_cook

 Stop that youtube video at 17:17 marker and look at that slide.  All IP IoT devices still sit on your LAN and can still connect to first party cloud services. SSDD.