Smart Home Moving Toward Open Standards

According to IMS Research, proprietary wireless technologies are set to decline in the smart home space in the next few years. Some 10% of the smart home nodes that will be deployed during the period 2010 to 2017 are expected include proprietary wireless technologies. Annual shipments of proprietary technologies are projected to grow from less than 3 million nodes in 2012 to 6 million in 2017, as some high-end automation suppliers maintain closed systems, and some other smart home startups deploy with proprietary systems to keep certification costs down.Despite annual shipments doubling, the proportion of smart home nodes that use proprietary wireless technologies is expected to halve in the coming years, to just more than 7% in 2017, indicating a move toward open standards for the majority of smart home providers, particularly in the high-growth system segments such as managed home control.