The rapid pace of technological innovation presents exciting opportunities to enhance people's lives and promote sustainability. These opportunities have led me to my current role at ABB Electrification's Smart Buildings, where I am thrilled to share a major milestone in our journey. I am delighted to announce the recent acquisition made by ABB Smart Buildings, which reflects our commitment to addressing the increasing demand for smart homes.
On June 12, 2023, we proudly announced the acquisition of Eve Systems, a Munich-based leader in smart home technology. With expertise ranging from device design to interoperability and security, Eve operates in both Europe and the US. This strategic acquisition reinforces our established reputation for enabling intelligent homes through our integral home automation infrastructure built on the KNX standards. Additionally, it complements our existing ABB-free@homeTM solution, which includes a wide range of systems and devices.
This has been a labour of love for everyone involved. It is one that I believe will that bring additional new dynamism, innovation, and agility to our global expertise, expanding our smart technology offering directly to the consumer. It brings significant benefits to homeowners and installers looking to retrofit and upgrade homes with the latest device technology to manage energy, utilities and comfort, all connected seamlessly and safely for greater ease and efficiency.
Technology for the home you can trust
Ideal for the retrofit market, Eve’s plug-in, interoperable devices meet people’s wishes for their homes to be safe and secure, their energy usage well managed, and to live more comfortable and convenient lives. They are supported through operation and connection in a user-friendly and intuitive way – all the control a household might need, but all within an easy-to-operate interface and a network operation you can trust. The Eve design and product offering is an evolutionary step along the home automation journey from a conventional home to a connected home to a truly smart home.
As technology has become part of daily life, so has a range of different devices and interfaces. Homeowners might have a holistic solution that manages heating, a speaker like Alexa that uses voice technology for your music, they might want to manage door entry, blinds and charge their electric car. All in all, the tech builds up and in too many cases, so do the apps. The irony being that the ease technology offers can actually become overwhelming to run, when often people might wonder, is it possible to bring different devices, irrespective of provider, together in a way that allows them to manage their comfort and security as smoothly and seamlessly as easily as possible?
Matter and thread – connecting lives and things
This is where Matter and Thread come in, and which all Eve products are designed to operate in. Matter and Thread are the revolutionary new standards for home connectivity. Matter is the connecting layer within apps to allow for interoperability and is backed by Apple, Google, Amazon and Samsung among other major players and boosts interoperability between smart home devices around platforms. With Eve being real pioneers in getting Matter up and running. While Thread is the wireless protocol that allow all devices to seamlessly speak to each other. Representatives from all the tech giants sit on the board of Thread. These local connections within these standards and protocols not only ensure interoperability and reliability, but also offer major advantages for energy management and security.
Energy management vital, security and privacy front-of-mind
Importantly, over half of all Eve’s products help households with aspects of energy management. Investing in one’s home is subject to a range of considerations, homeowners are looking for ways to cut energy bills and reduce carbon footprints, ideally at the same time. In a recent study by Bloomberg Intelligence, 88 percent of homebuyers felt energy efficiency was important, or very important, when choosing a home5. With energy consumption higher, along with bills, smart home automation and energy management is ever more attractive.
For many homeowners, privacy and security are also understandable concerns. Over half of those surveyed by Kaspersky in its Internet of Things (IoT) survey report in 20226 expressed concern about information security. As ABB looked to expand its smart home technology offering, Eve was a carefully made, compelling choice, with personal data security as important as home security in the operation of their devices. Going forward, we will be increasingly integrating our existing product range with Eve’s, and we will be encouraging the expansion of the core Eve offering, which will continue to be independently operated, into new geographies and domains.
The acquisition of Eve will make us a leading vendor in Matter and Thread, all in support of our mission to bring smart, safe, and sustainable buildings to the world. Bringing these two teams together will be a force multiplier in our shared goal of making homes smarter. Importantly, it will accelerate our abilities to support residents of existing buildings to retrofit and upgrade their homes, bringing with it the chance to deliver savings in critical areas such as energy efficiency. It helps bring automation to people’s lives in ways they can control, with security and safety at the heart of things, while technology helps improve their lives, and their comfort, both of mind and of surroundings. It is a game changing new chapter in the smart home revolution!
Sources
1. US Environment Protection Agency (2021) https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/indoor-air-quality; European Commission (2003): https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_03_1278
2) UN Environment Programme (UNEP) https://www.euenergycentre.org/images/unep%20info%20sheet%20-%20ee%20buildings.pdf
3) Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (JISEA) – (2022) https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/82750.pdf
4) European Commission (2020) https://commission.europa.eu/news/focus-energy-efficiency-buildings-2020-02-17_en
5)The Intermediary - https://theintermediary.co.uk/2022/11/energy-efficiency-key-for-90-of-buyers-bloomberg-intelligence/
6) Kaspersky– IOT survey report - https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/iot-survey-report-2023/
