Eve Systems, with their range of smart home devices, support of the Matter and Thread open standards, and innovative features, has established themselves as a pioneer and leader in the connected home.
Eve, part of ABB, has committed themselves to designing and engineering innovative products that elevate the standards of comfort, safety, and energy efficiency within the modern home while simplifying everyday life.
The Challenge
Eve's approach to building products is to offer a superior user experience through simple products that solve key pain points for customers: low latency, local control, and simple setup that doesn't require creating an Eve account. This philosophy allows Eve to deliver products using a modern, Matter-based infrastructure that is interoperable, future-proof and maintains user privacy. As Eve looked to develop their first Android app using the Home APIs, they wanted to ensure that they could incorporate core functionality from their iOS app, like the scheduling feature for Eve Thermo, a smart radiator valve.
The Home APIs empower us to finally unlock the full potential of Eve products
on Android, including innovative Eve-only features leveraging Matter
custom-clusters, and allow us to move quickly, without having to invest in
creating and managing our own Matter fabric.
Stefan Bauer-Schwan, VP Research & Development, Eve Systems
What They Did
With the announcement of the Google Home APIs, Eve saw the opportunity to unlock the full potential of their devices for Android users.
Google Home's developer platform, including its network of Matter/Thread Hubs as well as the Home APIs, enabled Eve to offer their unique app experience for Android users. To accomplish this, Eve did not have to build their own ecosystem of Matter/Thread hubs, operate their own Matter fabric, nor stand up their own cloud infrastructure. Google Home provided these key pieces of infrastructure and APIs allowing Eve to bring their app to market without having to duplicate core functionality.
To build their Android app, the team at Eve leveraged all aspects of the Home APIs:
The Commissioning API which allowed Eve to not only support Matter commissioning in their own app, but also allow their app to take advantage of Android's system-level commissioning UI, including Fast Pair.
The Device API which allowed Eve to build low latency control and management experiences for their Matter and Thread devices.
The Structures API which enabled Eve to provide users with a consistent view of the rooms in their home, whether they are in the Google Home app or the Eve app.
Additionally, Eve used the Home API's support for Matter custom clusters to deliver advanced functionality like the autonomous heating schedules for Eve Thermo. This advanced Home APIs feature will allow them to continue innovating and differentiating their experience in the future.
The inspiring partnership with Google and the outstanding Home APIs enable us
to reward Android users with an app that marks the state of the art by combining
seamless Matter integration with an extensive set of custom features.
Jerome Gackel, CEO, Eve Systems
Results
Eve's app built on the Home APIs delivered impressive results, extending their reach and enhancing the user experience. They were also able to:
Obtain access to the Android device ecosystem: By leveraging both the Home APIs and Hub infrastructure, Eve gained the ability to provide feature-rich experiences to Android users for the first time. This significantly expanded their market reach.
Efficiently build for the Google Home ecosystem: By being able to focus on unique Eve features instead of having to invest resources into undifferentiated functionality, Eve was able to deliver a high-quality Android app that incorporates many beloved features from their iOS app.
Build a solid foundation for future development: The integration with Google Home APIs provides a robust foundation for Eve to seamlessly incorporate current and future Home API capabilities like advanced home automations.