Open-source lingua franca aims to let IoT devices and services communicate across manufacturers and operating systems.
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The big data vision of a world network of connected devices — called the net of items (IoT) — continues to be slightly fuzzy with quite a lot of unresolved issues. As an example, too many devices communicate only with their manufacturers’ private clouds. And when devices from multiple vendors can’t share information, the IoT is practically DOA.
The AllSeen Alliance, a recently launched IoT consortium, hopes to bridge this communication gap by enabling IoT devices to share data — despite manufacturer, brand, operating system, and other tech specs.
“While it’s called the web of factors, it’s really more like a number of devices speaking to their very own siloed Internets,” said Liat Ben-Zur, chair of the AllSeen Alliance, in a phone interview with InformationWeek. “The thermostat talks to the thermostat’s cloud, and the refrigerator talks to the refrigerator manufacturer’s cloud.”
The result: a major data Tower of Babel where devices from different manufacturers don’t share data. Given the novelty of the IoT concept, this is not too surprising. But clearly there’s work to be done.
“That’s definitely not the vision the net of items is meant to be,” said Ben-Zur.
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One of the IoT’s assumed attributes is the facility to get connected devices in businesses and houses to engage. The AllSeen Alliance’s solution is AllJoyn, an open-source project that permits products, apps, and services to speak via various transport layers — including WiFi, power line, or Ethernet — no matter manufacturer or operating system, the Alliance claims.
“Any company that desires to leverage AllJoyn doesn’t ought to read a spec, interpret, and implement it,” said Ben-Zur. “You simply take the code, put it as-is into your product, and there is really not any interpretation needed. Will probably be an analogous code that everybody else gets.”
The AllJoyn project was originally developed at Qualcomm, where Ben-Zur is a senior director of project management.
“Qualcomm have been engaged on this open-source project for several years,” she said. “It started out as a peer-to-peer solution for smartphones and tablets to make it easier for app developers to construct social experiences and games, with no need to fret about complex issues linked to discovery, connectivity, and dynamic networks.”
The wireless telecom giant later expanded the project’s goals, developing a broader, IoT-style implementation. Today, AllJoyn software runs on most major operating systems, including Linux (including the Linux-based Android), iOS, and Windows, including embedded variants.
“We realized this may be a lot more than software that goes onto phones, tablets, and computers. It usually is more flexible to suit on any physical object — from a mild bulb, which has very limited processing power, or doesn’t even run an OS, to appliances, routers, and everything in between,” said Ben-Zur.
The AllSeen Alliance launched in December and currently has greater than 40 members, including such well-known tech players as LG Electronics, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sharp, Cisco, D-Link, and HTC. The gang plans to announce more member companies within the coming months, said Ben-Zur.
A world of interconnected machines is a compelling concept, but how might a network of AllJoyn-enabled devices benefit the common business or consumer? Ben-Zur provided a house-based example, one the AllSeen Alliance demonstrated in January at CES in Las Vegas.
A smart air monitor from Birdi, a startup, was placed in a room with several other seemingly unrelated AllJoyn devices, including a television, speakers, light bulbs, and a door lock.
“These were devices from manufacturers that experience never worked with Birdi before,” said Ben-Zur.
“When the smoke detector detected smoke, it used the speakers to sound the alarm,” she added. “So the house stereo was the alarm.”
The connected light bulbs started flashing different colors — a visible alert for the hearing-impaired. The tv showed evacuation instructions, and the connected door unlocked itself automatically.
“It is a straightforward example, but you begin to look the ability of what happens when different devices speak an analogous language, and the way seemingly disparate subsystems from different companies can come together,” added Ben-Zur.
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Kevin Casey is a writer based in North Carolina who writes about technology for small and mid-size businesses. View Full Bio
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