The smart home with networked sensors and the Internet of Things is becoming more and more of a reality.

Around every seventh household is currently equipped with the same equipment, and according to Google estimates it will be one in three by 2025.

One of the leading European manufacturers is Eve Systems from Munich with offers for measuring room temperature, air pressure, lighting, heating, smoke detectors and more.

When it comes to buying a product for the smart home, the FAZ managing director Jerome Gackel says that the main focus for customers is on issues such as energy efficiency, security and convenience.

Michael Spehr

Editor in the “Technology and Engine” section.

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Eve Systems uses Apple's Homekit technology with the advantages of data economy: Nothing ends up in the cloud, you don't have to log in, and there is no tracking, i.e. no digital tracking of all activities. But Homekit also has a problem: the more networked sensors, including Bluetooth data transmission or WLAN, are in the house, the more susceptible to interference the whole thing becomes.

A networked home currently has around nine smart devices, but Google estimates that there will be 20 by 2025. The more complicated the resulting network structures, the more intelligently the system has to react to malfunctions and failures. WLAN with a long range and fast response times, but a high power hunger, also reaches its limits here, as does Bluetooth with low power consumption, long response times and low ranges and data transfer rates.

In a first step, the "Thread Group", consisting of Google, Samsung, Apple and others, agreed on a new, open network technology for the Internet of Things years ago. Thread is based on the IP protocol 6 and forms a network that is not dependent on central nodes or a bridge. If a component fails, everyone else involved automatically looks for a new path; this is referred to as a self-healing mesh network. Thread needs a "border router", which is for example a Homepod mini speaker or an Apple TV in a Homekit environment. The more thread devices in a network, the more stable it is.

Thread is already supported by dozens of devices from different manufacturers, and now the next level of home networking is igniting: Matter is the open smarthome standard that works across manufacturers and devices, an industry standard for almost everyone involved, which allows, for example, a Google - or to integrate Amazon products into the Apple world. So far, when buying new devices, you have to consider the ecosystem in which they should run, this problem with Matter is gone.

Matter is developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which in turn emerged from the Zigbee Alliance. Companies like Apple, Amazon, Google, Ikea, Somfy and many others are now on board. Matter is supposed to ensure that all devices from all manufacturers can communicate smoothly with one another and uses Ethernet, WLAN, Thread and Bluetooth.

Existing systems such as Apple's Homekit or Amazon Alexa are not superfluous.

Matter is a kind of new standard language for all systems involved, which ensures that everyone understands each other.

In this way you can use a Nest thermostat from Google in an Apple environment or, conversely, bring Apple sensors into the Google world.

The new lingua franca for the smart home will start with the first devices in the coming year.

Many Eve Systems products can be updated to Matter with an update.