About the Project
What is the xPL Project?
The xPL Project was started in January 2003 by Ian Lowe and Tony Tofts. It’s goal: To create a unified protocol to allow the control and monitoring of all devices within the home, whilst maintaining an unparalleled level of simplicity and ease of use. During the first half of 2003, the protocol was refined to include powerful auto-discovery and configuration capabilities. With the core protocol now in place, much of the work involves integrating xPL support into software and hardware devices.
What is xPL?
xPL is an open protocol intended to permit the control and monitoring of home automation devices. The primary design goal of xPL is to provide a rich set of features and functionality, whilst maintaining an elegant, uncomplicated message structure. The protocol includes complete discovery and auto-configuration capabilities which support a fully “plug-n-play” architecture – essential to ensure a good end-user experience.
xPL benefits from a strongly-specified message structure, required to ensure that xPL-enabled devices from different vendors are able to communicate without the risk of incompatibilities.
