If your home theater system has a remote for the TV, another for the DVR, and a third for the surround sound system, then you can appreciate the need for a universal remote. As the Internet of Things (IoT) grows, imagine trying to control all the connected sensors and actuators related to home security, lighting, heating, and air-conditioning. Proprietary systems like Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant are designed to be voice-operated “universal” remotes, but they don’t necessarily work with competing products, forcing homeowners to either buy everything from a single vendor or deal with multiple control systems.
In 2019, the Zigbee Alliance introduced Project CHIP—Connected Home over Internet Protocol—an initiative to create a unifying connectivity standard for the smart home industry, enabling engineers to design products that are compatible with home automation devices such as those listed above. The goal is to create an open-source (royalty-free) standard that combines the best-in-class systems that encompass commissioning, security and messaging, and that have been proven to work at multiple scales.
And you can help write the specification.
The initial phase of Project CHIP focused on IoT devices in home automation systems, but the consortium is now expanding its coverage to include the lighting, electrical, HVAC, safety, security, window coverings, and other technologies used in commercial buildings. Research suggests that the market for smart building technology could exceed $80 billion by the year 2025. The goal of Project CHIP is to help the building automation industry to flourish through a common standard that makes it easier to integrate devices from multiple vendors into a single system. Affected buildings include schools, hospitals, banks, hotels, restaurants, sports facilities, airports, data centers, manufacturing plants, office buildings, and more.
To create a specification that meets the needs of all stakeholders, the Zigbee Alliance is looking for subject-matter experts to join its Commercial Strategy Group. I spoke with Heather Chesterman from the Zigbee Alliance and Mak Joshi, an engineer with Schneider Electric (a Zigbee Alliance member), who enlightened me on the project and provided a sketch of what expertise they’re looking for among members of the group that’s creating the standard.
Why Do We Need a Standard?
Commercial buildings have a variety of monitoring and control applications, including HVAC, lighting, water conservation, energy management, security, and occupancy. As building automation technology evolved, these systems became “smart” in different stages, each with its own communication standards. As a result, today’s facility manager must deal with a multivendor, multi-standard environment that features tens of thousands of individual devices, all trying to communicate with each other. The Zigbee Alliance noted a trend toward connecting all systems to the information technology (IT) network using the company’s Internet Protocol (IP) backbone. This trend served as the impetus for Project CHIP.
Project CHIP Goals
Project CHIP is taking advantage of the IP-based trend in order to deliver a secure environment with a single building control system that integrates multiple technologies. Ideally, a building automation system for a commercial facility includes equipment that comes from multiple vendors, “plays well with others,” can be easily replaced, and is scalable. It should integrate into wired and wireless systems alike, with remote wireless devices powered by maintenance-free energy-harvesting technology rather than batteries that need to be replaced. It must provide all the necessary security and comply with regulatory codes and standards.
Sounds simple, right? Of course not! That’s why the industry needs standards written by professionals who work with this equipment on a daily basis.
Who Can Help Create the New Standard?
The call to action is issued to a diverse representation of stakeholders and experts at all levels, from hands-on installers and technicians to high-level system administrators and engineers.
Installers can offer a “boots-on-the-ground” perspective of the products available, their reliability, their total cost of ownership (TCO), their interchangeability, and their interoperability. Facility managers will want to ensure satisfaction among building occupants and provide on-site and remote monitoring and maintenance. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are interested in a usable and well-documented spec that comes with the tools needed to certify their products in terms of cybersecurity and other regulatory compliances.
IT system administrators are responsible for network security and stability. By placing building automation technology on the same IP backbone as the corporate IT systems, each device represents a new security risk. Depending on the building, the network may be subject to specific regulations. For example, a business that maintains identity information, health records, or financial data must meet higher standards for data security. A communication protocol that allows software patches to be delivered wirelessly must be in compliance with the appropriate regulations.
In the case of an apartment building, a tenant may use a smartphone to control systems or even to lock and unlock doors. When there’s a change of tenants, the building superintendent will need a way to decommission the outgoing tenant’s phone and “introduce” the system to the new tenant’s phone. Restaurants, hotels, college campuses and cafes offer open access Wi-Fi to their customers, presenting even more potential security risks.
Finally, planners and system integrators will need to ensure that equipment is flexible, scalable, maintainable and future-proof. Nobody wants to be locked into a single vendor; at the same time, designers prefer a common “look and feel” across platforms in order to shorten learning curves and decrease human errors caused by inconsistent or confusing user interfaces.
Members of the Commercial Strategy Team are encouraged to bring their own use cases to the table, making sure that the spec addresses a wide variety of situations, including, but not limited to:
- A facility manager needs to add security and energy management to an existing office building that doesn’t have any automation or security.
- A facility manager needs to build security and energy management into a design for a new office building.
- A homeowner or contractor is adding security and energy management to an existing home that has no automation.
- A homeowner or contractor is adding automation to an existing home that has a security system.
- A contractor is designing and building home security and automation into a new house.
Those are just a few scenarios, but it’s certainly not an exhaustive list—hence the request for professionals to join the task force. Since they’ll be the ultimate users of this technology, it’s in their best interest to help create the spec. If you’re going to play the game, why not have a say in the rules?
Moving Forward
Joshi explained that Project CHIP is being built on a market-tested set of components with a spec that remains vendor agnostic by virtue of its industry-standard IP backbone, keeping the physical details of communication at the data abstraction level. The spec will be a living document that starts by addressing the most common use cases and devices, gradually being expanded and refined as more applications are added and new products are developed.
Although the Commercial Strategy Team has been working on the spec since January 2020, it has just begun to assess the initial version (Project Connected Home over IP), which focuses on smart homes. The team is now extrapolating from home uses to commercial applications, which have their own nuances that must be addressed.
In my previous life as a college professor, we had a saying about committee work: “Decisions are made by the people who show up.” The Zigbee Alliance has laid the foundation; it’s your turn to build upon it.
If you’re interested in joining the Commercial Strategy Team, fill out the form on this page.