Unified Communications Protocol

We developed a 'Unified Communications Protocol' for our smart home back in 2005, when we realised we needed all of its elements to communicate using a common language. Essentially, it is a common format for events between all the elements of our smart home. Where we use 3rd party components that use other protocols, we use a 'wrapper' to expose them via our this unified communications protocol.

Connected Home over IP project

project connected home over IP

In December 2019, Amazon, Apple, Google, the ZigBee Alliance and a number of other organisations announced the Connected Home over IP project which aims to "to simplify development for manufacturers and increase compatibility for consumers" and it very well might achieve this but, it's primary (unstated) aim to to enable its members to increase their market share.

Note:  In the real world, there is no such thing as a unified communications protocol for the smart home. It would only exist if everyone used it and this will never be the case. In the mean time, we simply have another standard and hopefully one that gets widely adopted. In this respect our unified communications protocol is also just another standard but, one that we have adopted throughout our @smartest_home.