All devices in one application | IoT World with Uline

How and why we plan to integrate all IoT devices on one platform and manage them through one application.

Problems in IoT today

Today, the actual consumption and penetration of IoT devices is negligible. Firstly, a situation has arisen in the segment when the user cannot use all the capabilities of such devices for one hundred percent and that is why:
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• Developed in the segment standards do not keep pace with the needs of users, vendors produce their own closed line of devices, combined into subsystems. One application controls all the devices of the vendor. Connection of third-party devices is not possible.
• For business, private m2m management platforms are being built to solve its specific problems for the customer. Business avoids and does not implement IoT due to the high cost of projects and the lack of boxed or platform solutions.
• Existing frameworks (for example, AllJoyn) are not about Plug and Play device usage at all, but this is again a story about development and custom projects.
• There are many questions to security - many manufacturers do not pay attention to the safety of their devices at all.

Secondly, we conducted our own research and its result is rather pessimistic - a small proportion of respondents use only smart watches, and the majority of respondents (we interviewed about 1,000 people) do not use devices at all and do not plan to buy devices in the near future. According to the survey, it can be argued that the real penetration of everyday devices in everyday life is insignificant.

The problems of today's Internet-things in general, on the surface and the most common concept of “one device or group of devices - one application” works, but does not meet the needs of users to the fullest extent. For example, you cannot add to the smart home the device you need for you, which the developer forgot to create.

In our opinion, the transition from the pattern “many devices of different vendors - one application” can become a growth driver for the consumption of the Internet of things and for this we need to solve the following tasks:

• Make a “Swiss knife” - multifunctional devices, for example, Power Bank with built-in 3G / 4G module and GPS transmitter.
• Implement an alternative connection of devices across all communication channels and use, for example, a standard that implies automatic connection to cellular operators around the world - MFF2, remote sim provisioning. Let's call the end-to-end approach.
• In continuation of the previous paragraph - the use of eSIM form factor to minimize the devices.
• Reconsider the concepts and standards of IoT that create an artificial framework for the use of new types of devices. Recall that the current standards group devices into groups, but why create artificial constraints, and by the way, the IoT standards themselves tend to a more open reference architecture (Reference Architecture), based on typical compatible components and interfaces.
• Develop APIs and applets for connecting devices to an independent platform that aggregates devices from different vendors and teach devices to “communicate” with each other.
• Try to use blockchain technologies as device interaction protocols.

Combining devices in Uline

As we in Uline plan to control your dog’s walk through the application and collar with GPRS tracker and GSM connection to the network:

We release our own devices.

• Smart Power Bank with 3G / 4G, locks with built-in 2G modules, GPS trackers and we will tell about them in more detail in the following posts.
• Create a mobile application to manage a pool of smart devices and not necessarily a single manufacturer.
• We realize in devices the ability to work via GSM according to the standard Remote SIM provisioning.

We create an IoT platform and a partner ecosystem.

• We are developing an API that will allow connecting third-party devices to a single infrastructure ecosystem and offer management tools for these devices.
• We plan to open a part of the developments, in particular, client software libraries and schemes of some modules, for example, GSM for integration of third-party manufacturers into our devices of our developments.
• We learn to understand devices from different manufacturers of each other, through the API, our own standards and data exchange protocols and blockchain, but the latter is not accurate.

And what is special and innovative about these devices? There are no keys in the locks, everything is battery operated and the lock will send a notification when a lock is broken. GPS trackers work up to a year, depending on how far away from the tethered phone is the device. Most devices work in 200+ countries via GSM, so eSIM is installed in them, which itself connects to a local operator.

Author Lesha Kalachnikov

PS
From the second attempt we begin to blog Uline World with Uline, in which we will talk about the devices we are developing, the platform and the realities of the IoT market together with experts.