Tentative Alliance
More than 500 people from the global information technology (IT), consumer electronics and platform industries are participating in the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) that will run for four days from March 20. Participants include mobile and home appliance companies such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Apple, and Xiaomi, platform companies such as Amazon and Google, furniture company IKEA, and energy solutions company Schneider Electric.
The CSA is an organization that develops and standardizes Matter, an open smart home communications standard. This is the second event following the release of Matter 1.0, the first smart home standard in October 2022. In the first event, participants had discussions on topics such as smart home standard technologies and data privacy.
Standardization efforts in the smart home market are being led by CSA’s Matter and the global home appliance council HCA. The HCA includes 15 global home appliance companies, including Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, Electrolux, and Haier. The CSA focuses on the standardization of communication specifications at the manufacturing stage, while the HCA focuses on standardization through cloud computing which is the software (SW) stage.
For a smart home to be successfully realized, all devices in the home must be able to speak the same language, even if they are from different brands. This means that a Samsung Galaxy smartphone can control an LG organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV. Indeed, this “sleeping-with-the-enemy” story could become a reality sooner rather than later. Starting with products released this year, CSA members plan to allow smart TVs, monitors, refrigerators, light bulbs, door locks, etc. to work based on the Matter standard, regardless of brand.
The smart home market is growing as compatibility has expanded among products in the IT and home appliance industry and even the platform and furniture industries are joining this global trend. According to market research firm Statista, the global smart home market is expected to grow from US$117.5 billion (about 154.6 trillion won) last year to US$222.9 billion (about 292.2 trillion won) in 2027.
In the future, smart homes are expected to expand to include connected cars and content platforms. When a driver in a self-driving car pulls into a parking lot after work, smart home devices will automatically create a comfortable environment for sleeping. In fact, the home appliance industry is ramping up convenience and universality by linking with calendar, memo, weather, and navigation apps in addition to smart speakers.