Google and Apple are rapidly moving in to an area with a lot of activity. There has been a recent surge of home automation startups and platforms like Revolv (http://revolv.com/), SmartThings (http://www.smartthings.com/), WigWag (http://www.wigwag.com/). One of the problems they are addressing is how to marge multiple different home automation standards (Z-Wave, ZigBee, Bluetooth Smart, 6LoWPAN). Presumably the new Apple HomeKit will be based on a single standard, Bluetooth Smart, given the Apple / iBeacon rollout.
There are also a bunch of more generic development platforms around, like relayr (http://relayr.io/) and Thingsquare (http://www.thingsquare.com/), that are targeting the device manufacturers directly. Will be interesting to see what impact Apple will have on the growth of this market, and the technology choices. Apple isn't always right (and neither is Google).