The successes and failures of standardization in home systems

"Home systems" is a new consumer products industry. The market potential is very large, although the market has been evolving very tenuously. What is certain is that consumer demographics favor more conveniences for busy families and devices that assist those with physical limitations. Products based on home systems technology will serve both of these market segments. A variety of consortia and authorized standards bodies has been writing specifications for networks to provide a communications infrastructure for home systems. This strategy of defining an infrastructure to support a nascent market is unusual. However, it offers the opportunity to specify a network without backward compatibility constraints, so often a requirement when upgrading and standardizing existing networks. This paper asks the fundamental question: has the home systems industry been successful in writing and adopting standards that promote industry growth? Unfortunately, the verdict is decidedly mixed. Standards and technical reports have been issued on the national and international level. Meanwhile, private consortia have decided they can write specifications that benefit their members by targeting a market niche. The result is confusion among potential product developers. This paper reviews some of the prominent developments in home systems communications technology, including work by standards organizations, private consortia, and companies. These protocols have had varying degrees of success. The author concludes that a clean slate offered by an undeveloped market is an advantage to standards writers. However, there needs to be a strong impetus to enter a potentially thriving market in order to motivate the standards writers to target and complete their work expeditiously. Otherwise, the writers will invest too much time perfecting their work, rather than making pragmatic compromises.