Buying one slick connected device after another until you have a smart home sounds cool, but things may not work out that smoothly.

Making products from different vendors work together isn’t always easy. And depending how emerging standards shape up, consumers may opt to rely on someone else to put the pieces together.

The issue of device integration loomed over discussions at the Connections conference in Burlingame, California, on Tuesday. It’s heady times for the annual meeting on connected-home technology, long a backwater of IT but now bursting with new gadgets from Internet of Things startups.

If things like Internet-connected lightbulbs, washer-dryers, thermostats and security systems can’t work together, it’s not really a smart home. But no one yet knows how all those devices will see eye to eye. Speakers at Connections tried to chart the future for device integration.

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