Amazon, Apple, and Google found themselves in the same space yesterday — and it wasn’t to defend themselves in a congressional hearing.
In a rare show of solidarity, the 3 tech giants and other members of the Zigbee Alliance announced plans to work together to solve one of the peskier problems in tech — getting smart home technology to live up to its name.
But like so many of your so-called connected devices — from your smart locks to your smart thermostat to your smart toothbrush — their IQs drop when they try to interact.
Engineers in Seattle, Cupertino, and Mountain View are trying to change that.
Their big idea?
Some people are creeped out by how much data smart devices know about us (Alexa, stop listening). And not everyone’s buying the stuff, in part over fears of being hacked, as several Ring home security systems were this month.
Amazon and the others hope to develop cooperative hardware that presumably would make interlinking the devices safer.
IKEA, another member of the alliance, has already partnered with Amazon, Apple, and Google.
We just want someone to figure out how to make smart dinner.