Current hot topic: Smart homes – Hyped in one breath as the role example for IoT and highlighted at every fair. However, how many of our friends actually have a smart home? Some might have a thermostat to always feel comfortable at home, some might have a cylindrically electronic conversation partner and some might have a smart lock, which opens with the smart app on your phone. Having all these solutions, are making your house smarter in a way, but the actual downside: Just because some things in your house got a little smarter, your whole home is not a “smart home”. Why is that?

The answer is simple and also often described as the biggest challenge for smart homes solutions worldwide, no matter if the solution is provided by a small start-up company or a huge enterprise, which is based in Korea or the US. All these solutions are missing one important fact: Missing interoperability, or in other words, when a home has many solutions, but they all speak different languages, we cannot really speak of a smart home.

Biggest challenge for smart homes solutions: Missing interoperability

“When there is a problem, there is an opportunity” – Maybe it is because of the competition, maybe it is because of blindness, but the solution to this problem has been available for decades. Because what most people do not see is that every problem can be minimised with a strong common basis. Best example is a PC – Although not every software is compatible with one another, you still can use them all to satisfy your need. They all have in common that they are all compatible with the OS, which is installed on the computer.

To get to the point: The common basis for all various smart home solutions is a “system”. This system is the common ground all the smart home solutions are standing on. Figuratively speaking, once a proper system has been implemented, all solutions can plant their seeds on the common ground and create something nice all together, which makes the house smart in the end. How to choose the right system? Also for this we have a simple answer: The system should be open, allowing all solutions to interact with it and providing a huge range of further solutions by various manufacturers. Described in 3 letters: KNX

KNX as basis for a smart home system

Thanks to the openness of KNX, there are already a lot of solutions available, which allow a direct integration of smart home solutions, leaving aside their great variety of languages. And the result is clear: Seamless integration into one system creates your smart home, which can easily be extended and modified at any time with a huge range of devices, which are compatible to KNX.

“STOP! – KNX is complicated, requires training and is not really suitable for smart homes, as for every single change, no matter how simple, you need to call the electrician. Is this true or false?”

Before choosing either the ‘true’ or the ‘false’ side, it is imperative to look at both sides to make yourself an opinion:

The main purpose of a smart home is to make the life of the customer easier and not unnecessary more complicated. Although KNX is a beautiful system, the configuration with the Engineering Tool Software requires knowledge, which is often gained by long training. Therefore, it might be the perfect solutions for commercial building, but not really suitable for customers, which are looking to create their smart home. So the above statement must be true, right?

Not anymore. After many inquiries from the market, KNX Association introduced the ETS Inside®, with an easy user-interface and the possibility to configure the system with a mobile handheld. Being self-explanatory, it is perfectly suited for setting KNX up as the basis technology for smart homes and even small commercial projects. And in regards of the statement that KNX is not suitable for smart homes: What is true can become false…

ETS Inside – the new tool for smart homes

Let’s recap:

The market is full with smart home solutions, but most of them are not compatible with each other, resulting in having countless solutions, which do not work together. However, once a common and open basis has been put into action, such as KNX, there are many solutions available, which allow all solutions, no matter from which manufacturer, to communicate with one another.

Lastly, thanks to the ETS Inside®, all benefits of the KNX Technology are now available for the end-customers, which are dreaming of their smart home. Simply spoken: KNX is bringing the dream of the own smart home to the people.

More information about KNX and the ETS inside can be found here.