Is PowerLine IoT a thing?

Imagine a Smart Home with No Hubs That Just Connects

I had another idea the other day. Imagine if, when you bought smart home products, you didn’t have to worry about connecting them to your network. Imagine that as soon as you screwed in your lightbulb or plugged in your smart socket, it was automatically connected—no password required.

I may have, theoretically at least, found a solution. It’s a mix of two technologies: one that has been around for a while and one that is currently being worked on by Apple, Google, and others.

Part 1: PowerLine Technology

The first part of my idea is that rather than connecting your product to your Wi-Fi, you just plug it in and it works using a system similar to PowerLine adapters. If you haven’t come across them before, they are plug sockets that you attach a network cable to—at both your network source and where you want your connection to be spread—allowing you to transfer data over your home’s electrical wiring.

This would eliminate the need for a wireless network, instantly making your IoT devices more secure.

Part 2: Project Connected Home over IP

But what about the communication? That’s where the Project Connected Home over IP project comes in. Amazon, Apple, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance have worked on a protocol that allows devices from different manufacturers to be controlled using a user-selected app, using the latest security features, and ideally without the need to route everything through the internet.

My Proposed Infrastructure

The second part of my idea would be an Ethernet switch that enables you to provide a PowerLine connection to the wires in your house. Rather than a single 1GB/s connection, having a multi-port switch capable of 2.5GB/s or 10GB/s would enable faster connections. It could also create VLANs over PowerLine, keeping your IoT devices on one VLAN and your PowerLine Ethernet adapters on another.

Because all the smart devices would use the Project Connected Home (now known as Matter) blueprint, they would run over IP and be controllable from a central interface. It would also be great if you could control them over MQTT, allowing you to connect them to Home Assistant without clogging up your wireless bandwidth or setting up a separate wireless network.

Security and Connectivity

I truly believe, with the right network security, this solution would be far more secure than a Wi-Fi-based system, while providing better bandwidth to devices that usually rely on Wi-Fi, such as tablets and smartphones.

If this became a reality, setting up devices would be ridiculously easy: plug them in and turn them on. You could still have simple web pages on each device to enable extra services—like Tasmota or ESPHome—allowing you to customize your IoT devices with ease.

For devices powered by PoE, there are already a variety of PowerLine PoE injectors on the market, so your PoE cameras and wireless access points would still be able to connect to their controllers without having to run a ton of network cabling.

The Challenge

I know this is probably a "pie in the sky" dream, as it would involve a lot of companies working together. I know the Project Connected Home partners have made a start, but I can’t see the companies who make PowerLine products joining this group, or if they do, it won’t be anytime soon. If I had the resources, I’d love to start this as a project and see if it could go somewhere.

Would you like to see PowerLine technology integrated into smart devices? Can you see manufacturers joining forces for such an ecosystem? What PowerLine devices would you like to see? Let me know in the comments below!