In fact, a smart home is not a new concept, and there are many related products in the market, but these products usually have limited functions and poor connectivity. With the development of artificial intelligence technology and the popularization of Internet of Things technology, smart home devices are about to take on a new look. This article will show you the development direction of smart homes technology and related solutions from Silicon Labs.
Active intelligence makes smart home devices smarter
For more than a century, science fiction writers have been describing as the future lifestyle of smart homes for us. However, there is still a gap between reality and fantasy. Although the current smart home products are intelligent, they are still not smart enough.
For example, many smart home devices can be called "passively obedient" today, that is, when devices are told to do something, they will do it as required. Users can arrange tasks, such as turning on the coffee pot five minutes before the alarm clock rings in the morning, and make rules, such as turning on the air conditioner when the temperature rises to the set threshold. However, by adopting timetables and rules, the system still only does things according to instructions and does not have the ability to make intelligent judgments.
Active smart homes will understand the family patterns and preferences through observing and inference. Using these data, smart homes can make decisions independently without human input. For example, lights and HVAC can not only decide whether to turn on and off according to a person is in a house or room, but also adjust the temperature according to the person's preference; the automatic watering system can be turned off when it rains, or the watering time can be slowly increased as spring to summer comes; smart thermostats can learn that families usually go out for dinner after work on Friday nights, and then wait until later to turn on the air conditioner.
This more intelligent smart home is much more flexible than passive and obedient smart home devices. Passive products need to summarize the preferences of everyone living at home to program rules, but an intelligent smart home can profile everyone's habits and preferences separately to automatically make corresponding rule adjustments. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are the main technologies needed to empower smart devices with edge autonomy. AI and ML will transform ordinary passive devices into active ecosystem participants, bringing value to users through their environmental awareness and decision-making ability.
The security of smart devices is becoming more and more important
However, as home devices become more and more intelligent, they will collect more and more information about individuals at home, and the new functions will also bring new loopholes. If they are invaded, these data can be used to track individuals without the user's knowledge, and thieves can easily know when no one is at home in the house, so privacy, prevention, and protection are particularly important.
Because smart devices can operate on their own, it is very important to prevent hackers from hijacking their functions. Attacks have gone beyond simply bypassing door lock intrusions. Nuisance or ransomware attacks are also a possible problem. For example, hackers may force the same song to be played at a high volume while turning on and off the lights inside the house. These attacks may also threaten the safety of users. For example, suppose the temperature of the water heater is raised to the level of burns. In that case, an unsafe smart device may be utilized and used as the gateway of the whole user network to control all smart devices, so it is necessary to pay more attention to security and prevention capability.
On the other hand, intellectual property (IP) protection is also needed for security because many companies have invested considerable time and money to develop powerful AI functions for specific applications. However, in the case of edge AI applications, security must be realized in smart devices or gateways in the home. If the devices are not fully protected, OEM's AI investment may be copied and stolen.
Support diverse standards and protocols to improve security
AI and ML are quite complex technologies, which many vendors must develop. Each vendor will provide key elements to solve AI puzzle in order to increase its value. Therefore, an important aspect of selecting smart device components is how many support suppliers are pooled for a chip manufacturer. The more comprehensive the options are, the higher the efficiency of the system and the faster OEM can enter to the market.
For example, Silicon Labs provides EFR32 SoC and modules to accelerate the design, development, and deployment of smart devices. The EFR platform supports the major standards and protocols used in smart homes, and it also provides the compute, storage and security resources needed to bring intelligence on the edge. This platform is supported by Simplicity Studio, an integrated development environment with the tools and features needed to simplify and optimize Internet of Things development for developers of all skill levels. Silicon Labs also provides the hardware, software and tools needed to protect intelligent systems in terms of user data privacy, operation disruptions prevention and IP protection.
With the increasing security threats, smart devices must find corresponding countermeasures. To provide the most comprehensive security today, Silicon Labs has developed Secure Vault, which can not only provide security technologies such as secure attestation, security upgrade, security key management, security debug, anti-tamper, security boot, etc., but also provide a true random number generator, cryptographic engine and differential power analysis (DPA), and integrated these functions into a security subsystem to provide hardware isolation between all security functions and host processors.
Silicon Labs provides a wide range of security platform combinations for Internet of Things design. For example, EFR32 can provide different important security features configurations according to the specific requirements of different applications. Silicon Labs also leverages leading security technologies, including MCU TrustZone based on Arm Cortex-M architecture to improve system security.
Enhance the interoperability of smart devices and improve the ecosystem
In addition to being more intelligent, smart devices need to be able to operate with each other and coordinate their actions. Leading Internet of Things players understand the importance of interoperability to market success. This is why standards organizations are developing integrated Internet of Things standards, and why companies such as Amazon and Google have started to cooperate to create standardized APIs for smart home ecosystems. When smart devices can work together, it will be a win-win situation for the industry and users.
In order to promote the interoperability of smart devices, Zigbee Alliance announced that it was renamed as "Connectivity Standards Alliance" (CSA), and renamed the project formerly known as Connected Home over IP (also known as "CHIP") as "Matter", which is committed to simplifying and coordinating IoT industry standards.
Silicon Labs, an early supporter of the CHIP project, is now investing in the "Matter" standard, striving to simplify the development of Internet of Things products and ensure that end users experience a wide range of smart home applications that are simple, reliable and secure. Silicon Labs' wireless solutions are currently available to develop Matter end products that support Thread, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth protocols.
Silicon Labs also launched its Unify Software Development Kit (SDK), which provides a common building block for connecting across the Internet of Things ecosystem. IoT cloud and platform developers are now able to design world-class functionality into their devices and gateways. They are fully confident that these products will interoperate support current and emerging wireless protocols. Unify SDK will provide ready-made protocol-specific translations for Z-Wave and Zigbee, and plans to support Bluetooth, Thread, OpenSync and Matter to significantly simplify Internet of Things wireless network interoperability and support expansion to smart homes, city, building and industrial ecosystems.
Conclusion
The smart home market is developing rapidly, and smart devices need to be easier to use. The best way to achieve this goal is to let devices think for themselves through AI and ML technologies. In addition, the security technologies needed to maintain user privacy, prevent devices from being hijacked and protect OEM IP are also very important. Silicon Labs can provide solutions that support multiple protocols and security, which will help customers build products that meet future needs and turn your imagination into reality to seize market opportunities.
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