ADT announced today it has joined the Zigbee Alliance and the Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP) working group. ADT will help to develop and promote the adoption of Project CHIP, a new royalty-free connectivity standard to increase interoperability among smart home products, with security as a fundamental design tenet. 

“As a member of the Zigbee Alliance, ADT will collaborate with others who are developing the Connected Home over IP initiative to give our customers an even more seamless smart home experience with security and privacy at its foundation,” said Bob Kupbens, president, chief innovation and product officer at ADT. “Our participation in the Zigbee Alliance and our recently announced partnership with Google demonstrate ADT’s commitment to help develop the next generation of helpful smart home security.” 

The Project CHIP protocol aims to increase compatibility across smart home devices and to define a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification. ADT’s participation in Project CHIP will provide customers with more seamless and secure ways to curate their smart home. Project CHIP has the potential for wide adoption across smart home devices through an open source approach that will allow ADT systems to easily connect with a growing pool of smart home devices creating a more unified smart home ecosystem.  

“The more we connect things around us within home and business settings, the more we need to consider interoperability and security — and through the Alliance community hundreds of companies are working alongside each other to raise standards and expectations around IoT connectivity,” said Chris LaPré, IoT architect, Zigbee Alliance. “Having ADT join and get involved in Connected Home over IP is a perfect pairing as security is a core design principle of this important member-driven initiative that will transform smart home connections tied to safety, security and everyday digital living.”