Smart Home/Smart Living – Testing and Certification

Intelligent devices that control things such as lighting, heating or the camera will increase housing security and comfort. But consumers can also save time and energy in their own home or in the living room with it. However, consumers are increasingly asking themselves these questions:

• Is my Smart Home secure?
• How long can I use my devices (useful life)
• Forward and backwards compatibility
• Are the standalone devices compatible with each other?
• Is my data secure if devices automatically connect to my smartphone?
• How does communication take place between the app, the internet and the device? Can I prevent possible break-ins with a connected home?
• Can a third party control the smart devices from the outside?

The VDE Institute not only helps manufacturers of smart home solutions with answering these questions for standalone devices and entire systems. With our independent testing and certification, we also provide you a tool to communicate answers in your advertising in an eye-catching manner.

• Information security to protect the confidentiality, availability and integrity of all information in the entire system.
• Interoperability and conformity based on use cases to connect devices in different smart home systems with each other.
• Functional security to test the overall system safety of the connected smart home systems at the system level.

In addition to technical software tests, the products and systems can also be tested and certified for compliance with product-specific security and EMC requirements.

The Smart Home testing platform developed by the VDE Institute can be used to evaluate, test and certify all smart home technologies that are currently used on the market. With this program, connected Smart Home products from different manufacturers are simultaneously tested for information security, privacy and functional security. This answers the question on whether standalone devices and systems are compatible with each other.

Among the applications and systems that are researched by the experts of the VDE Institute are:

• Gateways (communication devices),
• Backends (cloud systems),
• Apps (iOS and Android),
• Security software (for a secure electronic identity for authentication purposes)

During these test, the security goals for information security are tested in the product concept and in the implementation. Even user documentation and the technical aspects of privacy are part of the testing.
The tests are carried out in close collaboration with you, the manufacturer, because the objective is to not only issue a certificate but also to make the products safer and establish information security as a process.

The Smart Living business initiative , which aims to develop Germany into a leading international market for Smart Homes, will be supervised by Smart Living’s office on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy (BMWi).

Members of the initiative, which are composed of companies and associations, work hard together on conveying a unified and understandable image of Smart Living. Furthermore, they wish to share know-how regarding technologies, platforms, ecosystems and worldwide Smart Living activities. Members are also closely involved in creating the political and economic framework conditions for developing a Smart Living market.