Home Connectivity Alliance (HCA), an organisation dedicated to the development and promotion of secure interoperability and energy savings across long-life appliances, HVAC systems and TVs within the connected home ecosystem, announced the upcoming HCA Energy Management Specification 2.0 and HCA Insurance Specification 1.0 at IFA 2025.
“I am pleased with the progress the Alliance has made in the past year. HCA remains focused on cross-industry collaboration and innovation to help consumers save time and money through connected solutions,” said Yoon Ho Choi, President, Home Connectivity Alliance. “Our members share a common vision of responsibly and safely utilising data insights from long-life appliances and HVAC systems to benefit consumers while ensuring their privacy. The HCA Energy Management Specification 2.0 and Insurance Specification will define better energy efficiency from long-life appliances and HVAC systems, cost savings, and additional protection and value for homeowners.”
“Over the past few months, HCA has made meaningful strides in advancing smarter, more sustainable connected homes,” added Marco Bulgheroni, HCA Board Member and Chief Digital Technology Officer, Electrolux. “With the launch of Energy Management Specification 2.0, we’re not only reinforcing the technical backbone for interoperability — we’re also equipping consumers with practical tools to plan, manage, and budget their household energy use more effectively. This is about translating innovation into everyday impact: empowering families to make informed decisions that drive both cost savings and a more sustainable future.”
In 2024, HCA announced the release of HCA Energy Management Interface Specification 1.0 at CES, establishing an industry standard for energy-efficient solutions within the connected home. With HCA Energy Management, key data from appliances that consume the most energy — including how much power they use and how to optimise it — becomes more accessible.
Energy usage insights, powered by HCA technology, allow consumers to experience better energy efficiency and real-world cost savings. The 2.0 specification expands HCA Energy Management to include updated cybersecurity features, new configuration options for demand response, and added support for interactions between energy management systems and smart appliances.
“The HCA Energy Management Task Force looks forward to the release of version 2.0 of the Energy Management Specification,” said Michael Siemann, HCA Energy Management TF Chair and Director of Technology, Resideo Grid Services. “This update strengthens support for smart appliances in demand response, giving utilities and aggregators clearer tools to enroll, coordinate and manage devices. It also defines a practical framework for energy management systems to monitor and control appliance energy usage.”
The HCA Insurance Task Force was set up with a clear mission to develop a data pipeline (API) between connected home equipment and the insurance industry that delivers value to all parties: consumers, connected equipment manufacturers, and the insurers. Rising costs of avoidable residential damages, rapidly increasing insurance premiums, significant consumer deductibles, and even potential scarcity of insurance, has made the intersection of insurance and connected home equipment more important to homeowners than ever before.
Publication of the Insurance API v1.0 — enabling a standardised method for HCA members to share relevant data with the insurance industry and therefore encourage the development of unique insurance products to benefit smart appliance owners — is the first step in bringing the connected home manufacturing and insurance industries together.
“HSB is exploring and developing solutions that leverage the largely untapped value of IoT technology and data within the connected home ecosystem,” said John B. Riggs, HCA Board Member and CTO & SVP, Applied Technology Solutions & President, Meshify, HSB. “We look forward to ongoing collaboration with appliance manufacturers, insurance companies, and property owners to deliver data-enabled products and services that enhance loss mitigation while providing a practical realisation of our Connect, Protect & Save vision.”
In addition, HCA announced the formation of the Korea-SIG (Special Interest Group) dedicated to adoption of HCA specifications. New adopter members include Hyundai Development Company (HDC), HDC Labs, Hyundai Engineering and Construction, Hyundai HT, S-1, and Sqisoft. HCA Korea-SIG will work closely with KASH (Korea Association of AI Smart Home) to leverage HCA specification for the various industries that are part of SIG.
“The benefit for HCA adopters is once they have integrated with one of our members, connecting to other members can be as simple as changing the URLs and security keys,” said John Hughes, HCA Technical WG Chair and Chief Engineer, Trane Technologies. “This scalability opens up business opportunities that might not exist for one-on-one partnerships. Plus, by working together, we are designing solutions that are better than any of us could design alone.”
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