Open IoT standards: great solution or new problem?

Open standards help bring competitors closer together, develop the industry to which they belong, and at the same time, make the end-user experience more “smoothed”. In any case, they were created precisely for this purpose. However, in practice this is not the case, since each standard tries to solve the problem in its own way.

Can you imagine if there was no single standard electrical outlet in your country? What if each device would need its own outlet? It would be chaos. The idea of ​​this article was born after harsh criticism and disappointment in the standards of the Internet of Things (Internet of Things - IoT). Each of these standards is unique and not related to others.
')
In the list of my publications there are works on cloud computing, telecommunications and publications for developers. Now imagine how many messages I receive about new standards and companies supporting them. At the time of this writing, there were eight of them. By the end of the week they may already be 9 or 10.

If your company is in some way similar to Intel, Samsung, or Qualcomm, then be prepared to choose a specific standard and stick to it until you get a result. All others will rely on this choice - the choice of a leader in technology. Stake on several standards - and your behavior can be regarded as weakness and inability to make decisions.

Instead of leading the industry forward, you throw it back.

About a week ago [the original article was published in July 2014 - approx. trans. ] I published an article about the new IoT - Open Interconnect Consortium standards alliance. This is a fairly large standard player, with many companies under its wing: Broadcom, Intel, Dell, Samsung, Atmel and Wind River. The main objective of the OIC is to create a new industrial standard for the exchange of information between devices, which is really necessary and should definitely have a well-thought-out base at its base.

Another competing standard is the AllSeen Alliance , which includes Haier, LG Electronics, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sharp, Silicon Image and TP-LINK. These firms are also quite significant in the industry. So which manufacturer should I support? None of the firms are in two alliances at the same time, right? That would be strange.

Nest (a subsidiary of Google) recently announced Thread, which, you guessed it, is nothing more than another data transfer standard on the Internet of Things. Guess who is the main partner of the new standard? This is the Korean giant and the world leader in the field of smartphones - Samsung. A company that also supports the OIC.

This is just one of many examples. A similar picture is observed not only in IoT standards. If I participated in a bet, then at the moment I would bet on Thread. This standard is used in thermostats Nest, has the support of Google and Samsung. In addition, this standard was created from scratch, therefore, if necessary, it is capable of ensuring the operation of a mesh network, which includes more than 250 devices.

As technology analyst from Tirias Research, Jim McGregor (Jim McGregor) said: “Google is similar to the 800-pound [ 800 pounds - about 362.87 kg. - approx. trans. ] gorilla. Using its influence on the ecosystem, it can effortlessly direct the industry in a certain direction. ”

Thread organizers plan to open an additional acceptance of applications for joining the alliance at the end of this year. Also from 2015 it is planned to begin certification of devices.