In the previous installment on the history of the smart home, we looked at the development and history of this phenomenon. Now we’ll take a brief excursion into the technological underpinnings. For a smart home to understand our wishes, it must be taught to “speak.” A proper—and, above all, wireless—network is essential for this.
For the next 10 years, the term disappeared from dictionaries, only to resurface at the turn of the new millennium with the launch of Google Street View. Information had leaked to the public that this major company was storing, among other things, photos from ordinary users and subsequently integrating them into maps. In doing so, it created a kind of shared network—one could say it was the Internet of Things (IoT). That same year, the Chinese government even used the term to describe the start of its five-year plan. The concept thus began to slowly take root in the real world.
The IoT monitors and controls individual devices in the home. It facilitates the wireless transfer of information between them. Today, it’s also possible to control everything remotely using a cell phone or tablet. How does it all work? So what does a smart home need?
Although several methods for controlling a smart home have been invented in the past, three of them are currently the most widely discussed. These are the well-known Bluetooth, the ubiquitous Wi-Fi, and the specialized ZigBee technology. ZigBee has been on the market for more than 15 years, and during that time, it has caught the attention of all the major brands.
The foundation for this was laid by the ZigBee Alliance. In 2002, the Alliance created a global standard with the goal of connecting devices over long distances at low cost, with low power consumption, and with the highest possible level of security. It succeeded, and today ZigBee is a component of many types of products across a wide range of industries.
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