Nest makes its smart home protocol open source

Alphabet's Nest smart home subsidiary is making its Thread networking protocol open source. The company announced that it released OpenThread, allowing third parties to build products that use the same protocol as products like the Nest Thermostat. Nest hopes this will "accelerate the development of products for the connected home," although many companies have simply been using other protocols that have been open to third parties for quite a while.

Since Google is also a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google's OnHub router is part of the suite of products already capable of running on the Thread network. The network is an IPv6 networking protocol, which, as the company points out, makes it compatible with the myriad IEEE 802.15.4 devices on the market. This includes ZigBee devices, which is a common protocol adopted by many hardware makers, including China manufacturers. Another popular competing standard is Z-Wave, but it doesn't use the IEEE 802 standard, which puts those devices at a disadvantage among buyers looking to maximize interoperability.

To show the appeal of the Thread protocol, Nest touts its support among "industry-leading companies" like ARM and Qualcomm. Smaller third-party manufacturers might be harder to convince. If protocols like ZigBee are already interoperable with Thread, there isn't much incentive to switch from something that has already become a de facto standard among so many hardware makers. Still, having another open source protocol to choose from is good for an industry still looking to improve interoperability and create universal standards. Thread may prove to be a more useful standard as compared to other 802.15.4 standards and that could lead to wider adoption.