HGI Hosts Demonstration of Smart Home Gateway Bridging Different Wireless Standards at Broadband World Forum

AMSTERDAM, Oct. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Industry-first Smart Home Gateway functionality will be shown this week at the Broadband World Forum (Booth G9) in a demonstration of interoperability between heterogeneous wireless Home Area Network (HAN) technologies used to control switches, sensors and actuators from multiple suppliers. The demo, also presented earlier this month at an HGI meeting in Malmo, Sweden, is a collaboration of four organizations representing all links in the application value chain.

The collaboration partners – EnOcean Alliance, Lantiq, Prosyst and Rockethome – implemented a Smart Home Gateway that served as the central unit for device control and visualization of home status. Reflecting the goal of HGI to establish standards for a common software execution environment, the Smart Home system supports different wireless standards, such as DECT ULE, EnOcean, Z-Wave and ZigBee, via open interfaces. In the future, such architectures will provide users the full range of choice to design connected home systems to meet individual needs.

"HGI is setting specifications for the interoperation of software applications with smart home devices," said Duncan Bees, Chief Technology and Business Officer of HGI. "The smart home gateway platform is a key platform of interest, and we are tying together cloud components, APIs, and an abstraction layer that will allow applications to access multiple home networks. The four-party demonstration shown at HGI's BBWF booth is inspired by draft requirements set out by our smart home task force, and is an excellent instantiation of an approach that allows service providers to easily work with application providers to integrate new apps on their platform."

 The contribution of each of the four collaborating companies is summarized below.

• The EnOcean Alliance (www.enocean-alliance.com) contributed several batteryless switch, sensor and actuator units based on the EnOcean standard (ISO/IEC 14543-3-10) from its members. Thanks to the principle of energy harvesting, these devices work without batteries, using motion, light and temperature differences as their energy source. This allows smart home components which work maintenance-free and are highly flexible to install or to retrofit. The presented interoperable devices included a motion-powered switch from Debflex, a solar-powered temperature sensor from Afriso, a solar-powered window contact from Honeywell and a thermo-powered heating valve from Kieback&Peter. The demo was completed by a plug receiver from Diehl Controls which enables the user to control devices, e.g. a lamp, via EnOcean radio.
• Lantiq (www.lantiq.com) provided the physical Smart Home Gateway, based on its AnyWAN™ EASY388 reference platform and complementary connectivity chipsets. The Lantiq platform supports the complete functionality of a Smart Home Gateway with its high-performance dual-CPU architecture, intelligent data stream offloading, support for Ethernet and multi-USB ports, and integrated WiFi 11n MIMO subsystem. Proven in millions of field deployments, the Lantiq platform can serve as both the Smart Home and Broadband Access Gateway.
• ProSyst (http://www.prosyst.com) offers an HGI compliant stack for Smart Home gateways based on its own, highly optimized, embedded OSGi implementation. This stack provides support for various home protocols such as Z-Wave, ZigBee, EnOcean, KNX and DECT ULE, which are integrated through a device abstraction layer and a scalable home automation rule engine. The ProSyst solution includes several options for platform and application lifecycle management such as TR-069, OMA-DM and an efficient messaging protocol.
• Rockethome (www.rockethome.com) provided the service delivery backbone for home automation and monitoring. The Rockethome Smart Home technology enables visualisation of complex data and control features in a user friendly interface that gives customers convenient and efficient control over their homes.

The emerging smart home market encompass a range of services, including home security, remote control of lighting and heating, and home energy use monitoring. Systems and services to support these applications are considered by industry analyst firms to represent multi-billion dollar markets, offering business opportunity for both incumbent network and over-the-top providers. Researchers at Infonetics, for example, reported in July 2013 that up to 70 percent of service providers they surveyed said they would begin to offer various types of home automation services by 2014.

The HGI, founded in 2004 by nine telecom operators, is shaping the next generation of internet and voice services. Starting from use-cases and service needs, the HGI sets requirements for Home Gateways, infrastructure devices, and the home network. The HGI now has over 60 members from across the globe, representing the entire spectrum of players in the broadband home area. More information is available at http://www.homegatewayinitiative.org/. 

About Lantiq

Lantiq offers a broad and innovative semiconductor product portfolio for next-generation network and the digital Home. More Information about Lantiq is available on our Website at: www.lantiq.com/company or via Twitter @Lantiq and YouTube

SOURCE Lantiq