"Here's the thing," Ben Kaufman tells me. "I don't know if you want to live in a connected home."

That's a strange thing to say, considering that Kaufman and I are sitting in a New York City loft space that's been retrofitted with every internet-connected gadget you can imagine. The loft serves as a demo for Kaufman's latest startup, Wink, which lets people operate all their connected devices from a single smartphone app. His words are stranger still if you realize Kaufman is also the CEO and founder of Quirky, a company that crowdsources inventions, including things like the Aros, a connected air conditioner, and the Refuel, a connected propane tank.

When Kaufman tells me I probably don't want to live in a connected home, it's not because he doesn't buy this whole "internet of things" trend. He is the trend. What he means is that most people don't think of it that way. "I don't think consumers say: 'I'm going to make my whole house connected this weekend,'" he says. Instead, they might buy a Samsung connected TV here, a set of Philips Hue smart light bulbs there, and before they realize it, they have a small and growing collection of home appliances that are connected to the internet. 1

And that, he says, is why they need Wink. Wink lets all those devices to work together.

>Before they realize it, they have a small and growing collection of home appliances that are connected to the internet.

One of the biggest obstacles to the "internet of things" movement is that most hardware makers don't want their devices communicating with devices from other companies. But Wink has created a unified platform that attempts to circumvent this technological turf war. On Wink, you could set your Philips Hue lights to turn on when you open your front door with a Schlage electronic lock.

Ben Kaufman. Photo: Wink

The goal, Kaufman says, is to finally make the connected home truly connected. And on Monday, Wink took another step in this direction, launching 60 Wink-enabled products from 15 different manufacturers to 2,000 Home Depot stores across the country. "Our approach is by partnering with retailers we'll be able to really drive home the consumer education of the space," Kaufman says.

The launch closely follows another big push towards this lofty goal. Late last month, Nest—the home automation company owned by Google—unveiled an application programming interface for its smart thermostats and fire alarms that's already being used to connect them with other devices, including lightbulbs and wristbands. And earlier this year, Apple introduced a smartphone tool, called HomeKit, that will let devices work together. After so much talk about the connected home, this once-faraway concept is finally going mainstream.

Quirky has dabbled in building its own connected hardware over the years and launched a partnership with GE last fall to bring more inventions, like the Aros air conditioner, to fruition. But Kaufman says he quickly realized that in trying to reinvent every home appliance themselves, Quirky would only be perpetuating the fragmentation of the market. "There are all these great trusted brands that are already making locks, and garage door openers, and blinds," he says. "We realized there are already products on the shelf that need to get integrated and just work."

The decision to make Wink a subsidiary of Quirky and not a Quirky product was largely due to the fact that Kaufman is setting himself up to compete with his own clients. Just as the Wink team tries to convince hardware manufacturers to pay, in some cases, tens of millions of dollars to integrate with Wink, the Quirky team is simultaneously building its own hardware.

>'HomeKit's a developer platform. It makes things like Wink work better.'

"At Quirky, we’re going to build products that compete with nearly everyone in this room. I need to preserve our ability to do that," he says. Wink is now run by its own leadership team in a separate office in New York City. "These partners don't want to see me," Kaufman says. "They're like: 'Is this guy going to come out and compete with me?' The answer is: probably."

The Wink app. Image: Wink

Of course, these won't be Kaufman's only competitors. Apple's HomeKit certainly looks like one. But Kaufman insists HomeKit is an opportunity for Wink, not a threat. "HomeKit's a developer platform. It makes things like Wink work better," he says, explaining that Wink could tap into Apple products like Siri and touch identification. Plus, Wink would benefit from the fact that it can work even with products that aren't HomeKit-enabled.

Kaufman sees the Nest platform in much the same way. He says that Nest devices–including the security cameras it now offers following its acquisition of the startup, Dropcam—will also work with Wink. He wants his app to work with everything. "People don't want to buy systems. They want to buy products," he says. "That's where our approach wins."

1. Correction 09:20 AM EST 07/07/14 An earlier version for this story misspelled Philips Hue.