Google Explores Home Automation, Says ‘Your Home is an Accessory’
Google may aim to be the home area network when it comes to home automation. Sometimes a quote says it all. Just weeks ago, Joe Britt, head of the Android@Home team, in a Los Angeles Times interview, said, “We'd like to think of your entire home as an accessory, or better yet as a network of accessories, and think of Android as the operating system for your home.” It is expected that Android software for this application will include an entirely new communications protocol to compete against ZigBee (including RF4CE for A/V control) and Z-Wave. Uniquely it will have bandwidth to also transmit audio and video.
One sweet spot, shared by electronic systems contractors and homeowners is device communications and energy management and monitoring or REM.