The Open Home Foundation calls for smart-home products to keep working locally when cut off from the internet, and for manufacturers to document the interfaces needed to connect them to other systems. Its new choice position paper treats interoperability as a way for households to choose devices, materials and controls that suit their own needs.
The paper asks lawmakers to protect the ability to extend products without the original manufacturer’s permission. It also calls for restrictions on removing basic functionality after purchase, with exceptions for specific security risks and technical problems that cannot reasonably be solved. These are policy recommendations, not newly enacted protections.
The foundation includes its own field in the proposals: certification programmes should benefit users without imposing arbitrary access restrictions or pay-to-play barriers. It also argues that open systems should let people choose closed products, pairing deep customization with accessible defaults.