ECHONET Consortium was established in 1997 with the aim of creating an abundant 21st century society where people and the environment live in harmony. ECHONET Consortium will celebrate its 27th anniversary in December 2024, thanks to your dedicated efforts and cooperation.
The ECHONET Consortium is advancing the establishment of standard specifications for foundational technologies such as interconnected home networks and networks for small and medium-sized buildings and stores, to address environmental issues, energy challenges, decarbonization, and aging societies through the interoperability of various vendors’ home appliances, facility equipment, sensors, controllers, and more.
The “ECHONET Lite specifications” announced in 2011, recognized as a standard protocol domestically and internationally, was recommended as a well-known standard interface for HEMS (Home Energy Management Systems) at the “Smart Community Alliance International Standardization WG Smart House Standardization Study Group” the following year, and was approved as an international standard in 2015. Subsequently, in pursuit of improved interoperability among multi-vendors, the “ECHONET Lite AIF specifications” was formulated, and a certification system was initiated in 2016. Thanks to the efforts of our members, the number of shipments of ECHONET Lite devices has reached almost 150 million units as of the end of the 2023 fiscal year centered on the eight priority devices (air conditioners, storage batteries, water heaters, photovoltaic power generation, fuel cells, lighting, smart meters, and electric vehicle chargers/discharge devices), with 120 device models, and the coverage continues to expand.
In recent years, we have been confronted with numerous significant challenges such as “global conflicts and associated economic/energy security,” “global warming,” “increasing frequency of severe disasters,” and “aging populations.” To address these challenges, many concepts such as the “The Vision for a Digital Garden City Nation,” “Realization of a decarbonized society,” and “IENAKA data linkage platform” are being considered and proposed.
In response to these concepts, the ECHONET Consortium believes that by providing a “Orderly collaborative creation space” where residential facilities and commercial equipment can be safely controlled and data can be utilized, we can contribute to the creation of new services that help solve social issues.
Specifically, the ECHONET Consortium will promote the development of technologies to realize the ” Orderly collaborative creation space” by further enhancing and promoting the spread of the “ECHONET Lite specifications” and “ECHONET Lite AIF specifications” for multi-vendor interoperability in residential/business spaces, and by implementing further functional expansion of the ECHONET Lite Web API Guidelines in the internet space. Furthermore, we will expand our activities, focusing on the utilization of next-generation smart meters and DR-ready support, to achieve the realization of a decarbonized society and ensure further development.
We kindly ask for your support and cooperation in these endeavors.
