The Sparkplug specification that enables a “Plug n Play” Industrial Internet of Things Poised to become an Official ISO/IEC Standard.

The Eclipse Foundation, one of the world’s largest open source software foundations, in collaboration with the Eclipse Sparkplug Working Group, today announced the release of the Sparkplug 3.0 specification.

Sparkplug is an open software specification that enables mission-critical operational technology (“OT”) clients to use industry standards, including MQTT, to seamlessly integrate data from their applications, sensors, devices, and gateways with most Industrial Internet Of Things (IIoT) Infrastructure. The Sparkplug 3.0 specification represents the first version of the specification managed under the Eclipse Foundation specification process. It also represents the proper formalization of the specification over the v2.2 release.

The goals for Sparkplug 3.0 are to leverage the Eclipse Foundation’s open and vendor-neutral specification process to clarify ambiguities in the v2.2 version and add explicit normative statements while maintaining backward compatibility. In addition, the Sparkplug specification has begun the process of transposition as an international standard at ISO/IEC, an independent, non-governmental international organization with a membership of 167 national standards bodies. To support this standardization effort, the Eclipse Foundation has obtained the status of Publicly Available Specification (PAS) submitter from ISO/IEC’s Joint Technology Committee (JTC) 1. The PAS process is a fast-track process enabling a specification to be approved as an ISO/IEC standard in less than a year, as opposed to a full-length process that can take up to four years. Already growing quickly, Sparkplug’s transition to approved industry standard specification should further speed its growth and acceptance throughout multiple industries.

“Today’s release of Sparkplug 3.0 represents a major milestone,” said Mike Milinkovich, executive director for the Eclipse Foundation.

“This march to Sparkplug’s transformation into an official industry standard has come from significant industry-wide collaboration that continues under the auspices of the Sparkplug Working Group. We look forward to continuing to foster new partnerships to advance the adoption of MQTT and Sparkplug in the industry.”

The Sparkplug Working Group is simultaneously launching a product compatibility program for Sparkplug implementers. The program will ensure that Sparkplug-compatible products and implementations demonstrate a high degree of compatibility and interoperability.

About Sparkplug & MQTT

Sparkplug provides an open and freely available specification for how Edge of Network (EoN) gateways or native MQTT-enabled end devices and MQTT Applications communicate bi-directionally within an MQTT Infrastructure. It is recognized that MQTT is used across a wide spectrum of application solution use cases and an almost indefinable variation of network topologies.

By design, the MQTT specification does not dictate a Topic Namespace or any payload encoding. However, as the IIoT and other architectures leveraging the publisher/subscriber model are adopted by device OEMs in the industrial sector, having different Topic Namespace and payload encoding can inhibit interoperability for the end customer. To that end, the Sparkplug specification addresses the following components within an MQTT infrastructure:

• Sparkplug defines an OT-centric Topic Namespace.
• Sparkplug defines an OT-centric Payload definition optimized for industrial process variables.
• Sparkplug defines MQTT Session State management required by real-time OT SCADA systems.

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The LoRa Alliance®, today announced that LoRaWAN was officially approved as a standard by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies (ICTs).

The standard is titled Recommendation ITU-T Y.4480 “Low power protocol for wide area wireless networks” and is under the responsibility of Study Group 20 of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), ITU’s standardization expert group for “Internet of Things and smart cities and communities.”

“LoRaWAN was developed as an open standard from the very beginning, which was recognized by the LPWAN community and demonstrated by its rapid global adoption as the LPWAN for IoT,” said Donna Moore, CEO and Chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance.

“We undertook this endeavor with ITU-T to have LoRaWAN formally documented as an international standard by an independent authority because of our commitment to openness and standardization–which are critical to achieving the interoperability needed for massive scaling. The transposition as an ITU-T Recommendation validates the market’s decision to adopt LoRaWAN as an internationally recognized standard and sets the stage for even more growth.”

“I would like to applaud ITU members and the LoRa Alliance for their work together in paving the way for this significant agreement,” said Bilel Jamoussi, Chief of Study Groups for the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. “Collaboration among standardization communities continues to grow in importance alongside the accelerating digital transformation underway across our economies. We see strong commitment to building synergies among standardization efforts in ITU’s work for the Internet of Things and smart cities and communities, and the approval of this new international standard demonstrates that this is a commitment that ITU shares with the LoRa Alliance.”

The LoRa Alliance has been engaged with ITU throughout much of 2021 to complete its qualification process. The Study Groups of ITU-T assemble experts from around the world to develop international standards, known as ITU-T Recommendations, which act as defining elements in the global infrastructure of ICTs.

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The ETSI committee on Methods for Testing and Specifications (TC MTS) has recently completed a first set of seven standards addressing the testing of the IoT MQTT and CoAP protocols, and the foundational security IoT-Profile.

Axel Rennoch, Chair of the ETSI working group Testing in TC MTS, says:

“These new standards fill the gaps for the quality assessment of some of the most relevant communication protocols and system requirements of today’s industrial IoT systems using standardized testing techniques from ETSI.”

The ETSI TS 103 596 series provides an overall test suite structure and catalogue of test purposes for the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP). It can serve as a reference for both client-side test campaigns and server-side test campaigns. Part 1 specifies the conformance issues, part 2 the security issues and part 3 the performance issues.

The ETSI TS 103 597 series provides an overall test suite structure and catalogue of test purposes for the MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT). It is also divided into three different parts for conformance, security and performance testing.

ETSI TS 103 646 specifies testing for selected security requirements as known in the IEC 6244-4-2 standard. The chosen requirements have been collected by defining a dedicated IoT profile. The resulting IoT profile represents a generic minimum level of security for IoT devices.

All Test purpose catalogues have been produced using the Test Description Language (TDL-TO) specified in ETSI ES 203 119-4. The TDL-TO library modules corresponding to the Test purpose catalogue are contained in an archive which accompanies the standards. The TDL-TO developments have been achieved using the TDL Open Source Project (TOP), which is a free tool supported by ETSI members to write and validate TDL code.

The work of the ETSI MTS Committee testing group (TST) has been considered by active Open Source projects currently hosted by the Eclipse foundation: IoT-Testware. It includes Test purposes in TDL-TO but also TTCN-3 test code developments which are important for test campaign executions in test labs. Due to this cooperative work, organizations are now able to execute MQTT and CoAP tests programs based on standardized test purpose catalogues released by ETSI.

The MTS Testing (TST) working group develops studies, guidelines, test catalogues and test specifications for specific ICT technologies that are not already covered by other ETSI groups. Testing can include, but is not limited to, conformance, interoperability, security and performance testing.

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The unified data model unlocks smart cities by enabling interchangeability of devices from different vendors.

The uCIFI Alliance today announced the public release of the first unified data model to provide interoperability and interchangeability between connected devices to unlock smart cities, reduce cost and guarantee investments’ sustainability.

The open-source model targets key smart-city applications such as streetlighting, water metering and distribution monitoring, waste management, parking, traffic monitoring, air-quality monitoring, smart buildings, as well as safety and security. It also supports common and more complex services, including multicast grouping, sensor-to-actuator dynamic control and a calendar-based control program to standardize edge computing for IoT sensors.

Launched in 2018, the uCIFI Alliance brings market leaders, cities and utilities together via a unified data model that enables a native communication format between connected sensors on cellular, NB-IoT and LoRaWAN® networks, as well as an open source reference implementation on Wi-SUN mesh to be released as another cornerstone of the alliance’s vision.

With the unified data model, a series of 30 connected sensors and devices used for smart-city projects are described on the Open Mobile Alliance’s Light Weight M2M (LwM2M) registry. These reference objects and associated attributes are modelized using the LwM2M format and can be used on any constrained IoT network. They also can be implemented freely by any vendor in any product to meet cities’ tender requirements for openness and interoperability. Vendors may join the alliance to benefit from the certification program, access test tools and other software resources and to contribute to more interoperable object models.

Helmut Schröder, chairman of the uCIFI Alliance, said:

“Our unified data model allows city-and-utility IoT verticals to immediately benefit from this open-source, multi-transport, multi-supplier and cost-efficient tool to break silos when designing and implementing IoT projects.”

“Thanks to this unified payload structure, cities and integrators can avoid spending money and time breaking silos and developing proprietary data translators for various vendor products. As a result, cities can avoid vendor lock-in and have more flexible, wider and futureproof sourcing.”

With this release, uCIFI aims to fill the interoperability gap and become an IoT standard that offers cities and utilities full interoperability with other leading industry alliances and organizations, such as Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and Internet Protocol for Smart Object (IPSO).

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Trust and privacy together with cost and flexibility are key to security solutions for many applications in today’s digital world.

To address this challenge, ETSI Technical Committee Smart Card Platform, who standardized the former generations of SIM cards, has been working on a brand-new security platform called Smart Secure Platform (SSP).

The ETSI committee is pleased to unveil the first three technical specifications to launch this new security platform.

Klaus Vedder, Chairman of the ETSI Technical Committee Smart Card Platform, says:

“ETSI has specified the first SIM card in the late 1980s as well as the secure platform for all the following generations of SIMs. With 5G and IoT coming up, there was a need to go beyond this field proven platform and think of innovative form factors and features that would address new market requirements and provide a secure platform for all security sensitive industry sectors.”

The ETSI Smart Secure Platform offers an open platform for multiple applications with various physical interfaces and form factors. The new flexible file system and built-in capabilities support several authentication methods, as well as features defined for a UICC – the current security platform used, for instance, for the SIM card – such as a toolkit or a contactless interface. SSP is a highly secure, scalable, thus cost-efficient solution optimized to fit many requirements, from IoT applications to complex solutions, hosting several applications such as banking and payment, ID management and access to mobile networks. Furthermore, the SSP is backwards compatible to the UICC.

The three specifications cover the general technical characteristics of the Smart Secure Platform with ETSI TS 103 666‑1, the integration of the Secure Element into a System on Chip (SoC) solution in ETSI TS 103 666‑2 and, as the first protocol between the Smart Secure Platform and the outside world, the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) which is specified in ETSI TS 103 713. Further specifications such as the embedded and the removable Smart Secure Platform as well as the I2C interface will follow in due course.

The work has been achieved by a fruitful co-operation of leading players in the field of mobile communications, smart cards and secure ICs taking into account results and suggestions by various industry bodies. Though the first implementations are expected to be in the fields of IoT and 5G, the Smart Secure Platform is designed in such a way that other industry sectors such as banking, transport and ID as well as interested parties can easily adapt the SSP to serve as a security platform for their own need.

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Internet of Things (IoT) legislation has been virtually nonexistent over the years. This is all about to change, but there’s no need for panic or for everyone to grab their pitch forks and torches. Legislation for IoT will be limited and aims to help improve the standards and security of IoT devices. This is a good thing, but before discussing impending legislation and the ramifications of said laws, it’s important to understand the history behind them.

What IoT regulations?

The relaxed restrictions IoT has enjoyed for several years were carried over from when the U.S. Congress used a hands-off approach with regulating the internet as a whole. However, this laid-back approach has been weakening with companies like Facebook and Google, many of whom have been facing data security issues and congressional hearings over the last few years. This, in tandem with cybersecurity risks from other countries, has raised the stakes as Congress looks to limit the risk to the United States’ infrastructure, economy and security. Consumers are already well-aware of the risks of webcam hijacking and the U.S. Congress is not blind to this issue at a broader level.

Currently, there are several U.S. agencies whose authority is implicit to their roles and jurisdictions. The Department of Commerce, Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Justice all have some form of IoT regulation, but many are wary of department overreach or, in juxtaposition, inaction. Overlapping responsibilities create a classic bureaucratic challenge; everyone is in charge, and no one is in charge. The need for one over-arching authority is apparent.

Over the years, several bills have been proposed, but significant legislation aimed at IoT has failed to pass. However, with the recent success of security in industry information technology (IT) networks for DoD contractors, there is a template for legislators to follow. The template was established in 2014 when the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published a policy framework of digital security guidance for private sector companies. Its goal was to help evaluate and improve an organization’s ability to prevent, detect and respond to cyberattacks. This framework has been adopted by many governments around the globe and serves as an example of regulatory success. The U.S. Congress believes a similar framework aimed at IoT is reasonable.

Upcoming Legislation

All of this leads to House Bill 1668. The bipartisan bill is currently in consideration and will likely be passed or rewritten to include different language. Regardless, legislation on IoT is finally coming. From a broad point of view, the bill would accomplish four things. First, it clarifies the role of NIST as the lead organization to set IoT standards, rather than leaving each respective agency to set its own. Second, it requires vendors selling IoT devices to the federal government to self-report cybersecurity issues. Third, it requires federal agencies to procure IoT devices using NIST standards. Finally, it requires NIST to report and update IoT standards.

This bill mainly serves to tackle the issue of cybersecurity and the standards needing to be established that will help prevent cyberthreats from becoming realities on IoT devices. Vulnerabilities will be identified and addressed, while policies and procedures for device manufacturing are created. Any aspect of a device compromising the confidentiality, integrity or availability of information is considered a vulnerability and a risk.

As the bill continues its journey through the legislative system, some aspects are still unclear. What exactly will end up being regulated, and what are the exact definitions of certain words? For example, what does “connected to the internet” entail and what is considered “federal use?” There is also the question of what the U.S. will do in relation to international standards. Will there be collaboration, or will the U.S. take the lead on creating standards?

It’s important to establish the fact, this legislation is only for IoT edge devices used by the federal government. If the bill had a wider net, it would never pass. This bill does not apply to consumer devices such as mobile phones, personal computers, or to private citizens in general. It only targets remotely operated devices procured by the federal government and excludes those not consistently connected to the internet. Additionally, this does not regulate network security, as other federal standards already exist on the network side.

The Trickle-Down Effect

These caveats do not mean there won’t be far reaching effects. The broader policy goals are to influence all of IoT by setting a “reasonable person” standard. With the federal government setting the example, it is likely we’ll see security standards extend outward over time. The policy makers are hoping for outside organizations and corporations to adopt and apply the same standards for their devices, creating regulations on a wide scale without actually imposing restrictions.

This style of legislation accomplishes a couple of goals. First, standards are suggested to the wider market instead of imposed by binding regulations. It also helps regulate the government. Since the bill is bipartisan, there’s an actual possibility of the bill passing in the House of Representatives and Senate.

Ultimately, some form of IoT legislation will pass sooner rather than later. House Bill 1668 is the first bill likely to get over the hump, and it will be telling to see how quickly and widely it will be adopted beyond federal walls. In this case, regulation is an improvement on the current state of affairs, and it will help usher in a new era of reliable and safe IoT products.

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The ETSI Technical Committee on Cybersecurity (TC CYBER) has just released ETSI TS 103 645, a standard for cybersecurity in the Internet of Things, to establish a security baseline for internet-connected consumer products and provide a basis for future IoT certification schemes.

As more devices in the home connect to the internet, the cyber security of the Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming a growing concern. People entrust their personal data to an increasing number of online devices and services. In addition, products and appliances that have traditionally been offline are now becoming connected and need to be designed to withstand cyber threats. Poorly secured products threaten consumer’s privacy and some devices are exploited to launch large-scale DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) cyber attacks.

ETSI’s new specification, TS 103 645, addresses this issue and specifies high-level provisions for the security of internet-connected consumer devices and their associated services. IoT products in scope include connected children’s toys and baby monitors, connected safety-relevant products such as smoke detectors and door locks, smart cameras, TVs and speakers, wearable health trackers, connected home automation and alarm systems, connected appliances (e.g. washing machines, fridges) or smart home assistants.

“The potential benefits of the IoT will be achieved only if products and services are designed with trust, privacy and security built in, so consumers feel they are secure and safe to use.”

“We are pleased to have contributed to a standard which focuses on the technical and organizational controls that matter most in addressing significant and widespread security-shortcomings. It should be a landmark specification for consumers and industry alike,” says Stephen Russell, Secretary-General of ANEC, the organization representing consumers in standardization, and an ETSI member.

TS 103 645 requires implementers to forgo the use of universal default passwords, which have been the source of many security issues. It also requires implementation of a vulnerability disclosure policy to allow security researchers and others to report security issues.

“Stakeholders at all levels have worked together to make sure the specification was outcome-focused, rather than prescriptive, giving organizations the flexibility to innovate and implement security solutions appropriate for their products,” says Luis Jorge Romero, ETSI’s Director General. “We’re really proud to release a standard that was highly needed for consumers and society at large.”

As many IoT devices and services process and store personal data, this specification can help ensure that these are compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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The IIC, now incorporating OpenFog, is the single-largest organization focused on IIoT, AI, fog and edge computing; IIC steering committee elects two new members from OpenFog leadership.

The Industrial Internet Consortium® (IIC) and the OpenFog Consortium® (OpenFog) today announced that they have finalized the details to combine the two largest and most influential international consortia in Industrial IoT, fog and edge computing.

Effective immediately, the organizations will work together under the IIC umbrella to drive the momentum of the industrial internet, including the development and promotion of industry guidance and best practices for fog and edge computing.

Today’s announcement brings OpenFog members into the IIC at a time when their complementary areas of technology are emerging in the mainstream. The first formal meeting of the unified organization will be held in Raleigh, N.C., from February 11-14.

Stan Schneider, CEO of Real-Time Innovations (RTI) and Vice Chair of the IIC Steering Committee., said:

“This agreement brings together the two most important organizations shaping the Industrial Internet of Things. The combined organization offers greater influence to members, more clarity to the market, and a lower-risk path to the future for end users. We will be the center of gravity for the future of Industrial IoT systems across industry verticals.”

“We are excited to take the first steps toward integrating the OpenFog Working Groups, Testbeds and Use Cases with those of the IIC,” said Matt Vasey, OpenFog chairman and president, and director, AI and IoT business development, Microsoft. “Our membership is highly motivated to contribute at every level to continue the advancement of fog technology in the Industrial Internet.”

Quotes from IIC Steering Committee Members:

“We are looking forward to our continued work at the IIC strengthened with the addition of OpenFog. The combined organization will cover the edge to cloud continuum and leverage the international diversity of its members, regional committees and testbeds.” – Ron Zahavi, Chief Strategist for IoT Standards, Azure IoT, Microsoft

“Building out the IIoT ecosystem is essential to ensuring quick market adoption. A significant amount of data is processed at the edge in a majority of IoT solutions being deployed. Joining our memberships as well as our technical edge and fog expertise is a force multiplier for the guidance that we are creating for the IoT industry.” – Wael William Diab, Senior Director, Huawei Technologies

“ABB’s digital approach recognizes the importance of all elements of an IIoT stack, from the edge to the cloud, from the sensor, the automation system, and the IoT analytics, as well as the importance of open standards to ensure interoperability. As an IIC member since early days and an IIC Steering Committee member, ABB sees a great value in joining forces between the Industrial Internet Consortium and the Open Fog consortium.” – Dr. Christopher Ganz, ABB Group VP Service R&D

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Eclipse Leshan open source project provides production ready implementation of new IoT device management standard.

The Eclipse IoT Working Group, a collaborative working group of the Eclipse Foundation, is pleased to announce the Eclipse Leshan open source project will support the newly ratified Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) LightweightM2M (LwM2M) 1.0 device management standard.

LwM2M has become an important Internet of Things (IoT) standard for managing low power and lightweight devices that are common for IoT solutions.

Eclipse Leshan is a Java based implementation of the LwM2M standard. It provides a LwM2M server implementation that can be incorporated into any IoT platform or solution. Eclipse Leshan incorporates some of the core IoT functionality required for device management, including access control, device connectivity, firmware update, location, and connectivity statistics.

Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation, explains:

“A key strategy of the Eclipse IoT community has been to provide open source implementations of IoT standards. Therefore, we are thrilled about our close collaboration with the OMA to provide an open source implementation of LwM2M.”

“Eclipse Leshan’s production quality code will be available soon after the specification has been ratified.”

Eclipse Leshan has been in development since 2014. The project code has been downloaded over 30,000 times. The project is led by developers from Sierra Wireless and includes contributions from over 25 developers. Companies active in the Leshan community include Sierra Wireless, Bosch Software Innovations and many others.

A new milestone release of Eclipse Leshan 1.0, supporting the LwM2M 1.0 specification, was made available this week.

“OMA’s LwM2M standard is a powerful and yet simple technology that fulfills remote device management requirements for the IoT,” said Julien Vermillard, Principal Engineer, Sierra Wireless.
“Sierra Wireless started the open source “Leshan project” with the Eclipse Foundation as a way to promote interoperability, and our AirVantage IoT platform is compatible with Leshan. We believe the LwM2M 1.0 release will provide a stable foundation for the standard and support the growing Leshan and LwM2M communities.”

Eclipse Wakaama will also support the LwM2M 1.0 specification. Eclipse Wakaama is a C implement about the LwM2M specification.

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UNB Pioneer Telensa joins Weightless SIG board; Weightless-N moves to ETSI LTN initiative.

The Weightless SIG today announced that it is partnering with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Simultaneously, the SIG is announcing the appointment of key ultra narrow-band (UNB) LPWAN technology and applications provider, Telensa, to the board of the Weightless SIG.

In a move widely acknowledged to bring much needed consolidation to the LPWAN space the Weightless SIG will immediately offer its Weightless-N standards activities into the ETSI LTN initiative within TG28, ensuring that all those interested in UNB solutions are represented in a single forum.

ETSI is a globally accepted standards development organisation within which the Low Throughput Network (LTN) initiative is developing a standard for LPWAN. This initiative is supported by a number of significant companies including Telensa and Sigfox. ETSI LTN is concentrating on a UNB standard.

There are only two standards bodies that have developed IoT specific standards for unlicensed spectrum based on UNB technology – ETSI and the Weightless SIG.

Weightless CEO, Professor William Webb commented:
“In order to reduce fragmentation and enable critical mass in the marketplace we are bringing these two initiatives together, immediately reducing fragmentation and providing a platform around which industry can coalesce”, adding: “We are delighted to welcome Telensa to the burgeoning Weightless ecosystem” as they join the SIG’s board as key players in this consolidation.”

Telensa’s vertical smart city solutions include smart street lighting, where it now has a footprint of over 1 million lights across the world. Telensa’s solutions are based on its own 2-way UNB technology, which it has been progressing to a standard with ETSI for the past 2 years.

“Proprietary ecosystems are no substitute for credible open standards when real market velocity is required”, said Will Gibson, CEO Telensa. “That’s why we’re delighted to be extending our ETSI standards work by joining the board of Weightless. This partnership signals a growing maturity in the LPWA market and will liberate a new wave of smart city sensor and application developers.”

Aapo Markkanen, Principal Analyst at Machina Research, commented:

“Low Power Wide Area networks are set to become an integral building block for a variety of connected products and services. Deploying such networks also in unlicensed spectrum is critical to ensuring that the market for IoT connectivity will remain sufficiently competitive. The announced initiative is important, because it can open up a whole new level of scale benefits to players that are driving the unlicensed networks forward.”

Weightless will focus on certification, the eco-system development, marketing and information dissemination and other relevant activities to aid the widespread success of the ETSI standards. It is part of a series of moves by the Weightless SIG to bring consolidation and order to the IoT connectivity technology space.

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Next release to incorporate security and interworking across IoT device ecosystems.

oneM2M, the global standards initiative for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced it has published updated editions of its Release 1 global specifications, a development that promises to enable IoT interworking and create a foundation platform to interconnect IoT devices and applications.

The standards cover requirements, architecture, application programming interface (API) specifications, security solutions and mapping to common industry protocols such as CoAP, MQTT and HTTP. The updated specifications, released just one year after initial publication, have incorporated improvements based on early implementation experience and feedback from oneM2M’s first Interop event held last year.

By building upon well-proven protocols that allow applications across industry segments to communicate with each other, the updated standard enables service providers to combine different IoT devices, technologies and applications – a critical feature in their efforts to provide services across a range of industries. Release 1 has already been used in service provider deployments in South Korea, Asia and Europe for smart city and transport system deployments.

“oneM2M enables interoperability across IoT applications regardless of the underlying technology used,” said Dr. Omar Elloumi, of Nokia, and oneM2M’s Technical Plenary Chair. “This reduces the complexity for the application developer and lowers CAPEX and OPEX for service providers.”

“Most importantly, the updated standard presents the industry with the first scalable and future-proof platform upon which it can invest and develop IoT applications, without fear of vendor lock-in or needing to commit to one connectivity technology.”

The oneM2M global alliance is now working on the second release of its specifications, which it expects to complete by mid-2016. The updated standard will include enhanced security, features for home domain and industrial domain deployment, semantic interoperability, and interworking with popular IoT device ecosystems such as AllSeen Alliance, OCF and OMA LightWeightM2M. These features will present the unique value proposition that application developers have been looking for – one common core interworking platform technology for the Internet of Things.

“Tenders now explicitly require that oneM2M be incorporated in deployments; the first release and the impending Release 2 will respond to a critical need as service providers and application developers tackle connectivity demand across industries and across platforms,” added Dr. Elloumi.

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Efforts led by ARRIS, CableLabs, Cisco, Electrolux, GE Digital, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Samsung – Ensures IoT Solutions and Devices of the Future Work Together Seamlessly.

Today, major industry leaders who are invested in the future of the Internet of Things, announced they will unify as the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), an entity whose goal will be to help unify IoT standards so that companies and developers can create IoT solutions and devices that work seamlessly together.

Via cross-industry collaboration, the OCF will work towards unlocking the massive opportunity of the future global IoT segment, accelerate industry innovation and help all developers and companies create solutions that map to a single, open IoT interoperability specification. Ultimately, with OCF specifications, protocols and open source projects, a wide-range of consumer, enterprise and embedded devices and sensors from a variety of manufacturers, can securely and seamlessly interact with one another.

The OCF unifies the entirety of the former Open Interconnect Consortium with leading companies at all levels – silicon, software, platform, and finished-goods – dedicated to providing this key interoperability element of an IoT solution.

The OCF’s vision for IoT is that billions of connected devices (appliances, phones, computers, industrial equipment) will communicate with one another regardless of manufacturer, operating system, chipset or transport. With the OCF fulfilling this promise, anyone – from a large technology company to a maker in their garage – can adopt the open standards of OCF to innovate and compete, helping ensure secure interoperability for consumers, business, and industry.

Supporting Quotes

Cisco:
John Oberon, Vice President, IoT Software:

“OIC’s leadership and expansion to OCF is a step forward as these two leading standards bodies are unified to achieve a common set of protocols and certifications for IoT. OCF will help enable developers and industries around consumer, SP, enterprise, industrial to leverage promise of IoT in a scalable and secure manner.”

Electrolux:
“The Open Connectivity Foundation will create significant value for consumers by paving the way for an interoperable future. We’re well on our way to a truly smart home, and this will only happen when appliances can freely communicate with a wide range of products. This important move takes us one step closer to realizing that vision, by widening our existing collaboration initiatives to an even larger number of global brands.” — Jan Brockmann, Chief Operations Officer

GE Digital:
“Breaking down the barriers of technology silos and supporting better integration of these solutions and devices will be key to advancing the Industrial Internet of Things. GE is excited to join together with other organizations to create the standards that will help enable interoperability in the future.” – Greg Petroff, Chief Experience Officer

Intel:
“We believe in a future where all of the devices in our lives are connected to enable ways of living and working that we can’t even imagine today. The only way to unlock the unlimited possibilities for innovation in the Internet of Things is to unify our work with industry peers. This collaboration is an exciting step in that direction.” – Doug Fisher, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Software and Services Group

Microsoft:
“The OCF will help consolidate industry attention and create opportunity, via an agreed upon set of protocols that move the world forward. We are designing Windows 10 to be the ideal operating system and Azure to be the best cloud companion for Things, and for both of them to interoperate with all Things. Windows 10 devices will natively support the new OCF standard, making it easy for Windows to discover, communicate, and orchestrate multiple IoT devices in the home, in business, and beyond. We look forward to seeing the innovation this new standard will enable for all customers and the endless opportunities it will create for developers.” – Terry Myerson, EVP, Windows and Devices Group

Qualcomm:
“Qualcomm has pursued the goal of open interoperability from the beginning. We helped develop the AllJoyn framework to drive this goal, and now we look forward to collaborating with leading IoT-focused companies to form the OCF for precisely the same reason. We look forward to achieving the IoT vision we all share.” – Michael Wallace, President of Qualcomm Connected Experiences, Inc. (a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated)

Samsung:
“OIC has been working to develop a standard specification for IoT devices, and at the same time developing IoTivity as an open source reference implementation. We welcome these leaders in their fields to OCF, which we believe will become the most diverse global organization developing IoT standards and code.” – SeungHwan Cho, Executive Vice President and Deputy Head of Software R&D Center.

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Collaboration will address fast growing high-tech IoT industry.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) have executed an agreement to monitor global Internet of Things (IoT) activities and collaborate on developing standards.

The memorandum of understanding recognizes the importance of standards and the effective management of the associated applications through which value is clearly identified and captured for this fast-growing industry.

“ITU welcomes the participation of academic institutions like Georgia Tech in creating an enabling environment for leading edge technologies,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “This agreement is an important step as we address the coming Age of the Internet of Things.”

“The Internet of Things includes a wide array of disciplines and technologies in which Georgia Tech has a proven track record of expertise,” said W.P. “Bud” Peterson, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“Our cutting-edge work in sensors, signal processing, cybersecurity, autonomous systems and computer applications spans a number of the academic programmes as well as applied research enterprise here at Georgia Tech, and we are looking forward to partnering with ITU to develop solutions to this global challenge.”

This initiative will be carried out in collaboration with the ITU Standardization Sector (ITU-T) Study Group 20, which addresses IoT technologies and its applications, including smart cities and communities, machine-to-machine communications and ubiquitous sensor networks. The Group is charged with developing standards that leverage IoT technologies to address urban-development challenges.

The Georgia Tech interface will be the Georgia Tech Centre for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies (CDAIT), an IoT technological think tank aimed at identifying, understanding, and solving challenges within the IoT value chain.

Areas of cooperation between ITU and CDAIT include:

• Joint steering committee. The ITU Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and Georgia Tech will establish a Joint Steering Committee composed of two representatives from each organization that will supervise the overall implementation of the collaboration.
• Thought leadership. Both parties will encourage standards groups and trade associations focused on a specific industry (“vertical market”) or a group of industries (“horizontal market”), open source communities, de facto standard representatives, and other public and private organizations interested in IoT technologies to participate in IoT relevant discussions with the goal of promoting interoperability in the IoT arena across industry and geographic markets.
• Global IoT events. Through this cooperation both ITU and Georgia Tech plan to jointly organize topic-relevant events in the future, such as but not limited to workshops, conferences and webinars, for the purpose of enriching the debate regarding standards-development activities in the technical areas pertinent to IoT.
• IoT standardization, research and education. A critical objective of this agreement is the expectation that the collaboration will may be of particular relevance to the standardization work of certain ITU-T Study Groups, such as ITU-T Study Group 20 “IoT and its applications including smart cities and communities (SC&C)” as well as the research and education activities of CDAIT.

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Pioneers of the Web of Things drive IoT interoperability with a global open standard application layer submission to the W3C.

The Internet of Things has reached a significant milestone towards establishing industry standards. EVRYTHNG, the Internet of Things (IoT) software pioneer and smart products cloud platform, has submitted important new guidelines to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The core of EVRYTHNG’s submission is the creation of a unifying global ‘Web of Things’ standard at a critical time in IoT’s development. The proposal vastly simplifies IoT, by making it easy for anyone to connect IoT products, devices, services, and applications to the Web so they can talk to each other. The recommendations are based on three years of work alongside organizations like W3C, IBM and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center for European COMPOSE research.

The Emerging Land Grab for IoT Standardization

How the world standardizes the World Wide Web for the revolutionary wave of technologies driving the IoT forward is being decided right now, and the battle lines being drawn are often shaped by individual commercial agendas which inhibit the creation of a universal, public resource. The technical detail about how physical things talk to each other over the Web will make a massive difference about whether or not the IoT realizes its true vision, or becomes a complex mesh of proprietary or semi-proprietary standards.

EVRYTHNG’s Advocacy for Open Standards Drives Efficient and Sustainable IoT Interoperability

In response to today’s fast-paced movement towards standardization, EVRYTHNG holds the position that because the open Web has always been the essential global platform for connecting information, people and applications, the Web should now be the platform for connecting physical things too. From an engineering standpoint, EVRYTHNG’s platform has always been based on this ‘Web of Things’ philosophy: a physical Web of objects, devices, platforms and applications that work together using open Web standards. Webofthings.org is the company’s community for developers, researchers, and designers exploring this future.

Driving the movement towards openness and convergence are EVRYTHNG’s Dominique Guinard, Co-founder & Chief Technical Officer, and Vlad Trifa, Co-founder & Executive Vice President of Research and Development. Both members of the Web of Things Interest Group (IG), Guinard and Trifa have dedicated their skills and insight to realizing the W3C vision of One Web.

Under Guinard and Trifa’s leadership, highlights of EVRYTHNG’s proposal to the W3C includes:

1. Network and transport protocol independence. The proposal does not require the use of a given networking protocol (e.g., Zigbee, Bluetooth) but rather focuses on an Application Layer for the IoT that abstracts the specifics of different networking protocols, therefore fostering interoperability.

2. Advocating the use of Web protocols. As previously described, core to EVRYTHNG’s position is leveraging web-based protocols such HTTP, WebSockets and JSON as the critical building blocks for the future application layer of the IoT. In this submission, EVRYTHNG proposes comprehensive recommendations on standards that can be implemented to make this a reality.

3. Defining an open and simple framework that models physical objects and their interactions. As more physical objects become smart, the industry will increasingly benefit from a global, universal language. EVRYTHNG’s submission outlines a formal structure for defining physical products, as well as provides a framework that stakeholders across the ecosystem can use to allow smart products to efficiently and effectively interact with each other.

Guinard explained: “The architecture of the IoT is currently a complex labyrinth of fragmented standards and alliances. This makes neutral institutions such as the W3C vital to ensure that no single, commercial interest dominates the space. Universal standards are essential; not only to provide a fair marketplace, but also to help the IoT achieve its full potential. By operating in silos, devices are making it much harder to work together to deliver a coherent, valuable user experience. This is why EVRYTHNG has proposed an entirely Web standards based approach.”

Trifa added:

“The adoption of a simple and uniform taxonomy that provides a set way of describing Things would enable all applications to discover and communicate with a myriad of things without the need for individual custom codes. Standardization would mean an IoT without barriers where anything is possible.”

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oneM2M, the global standards initiative for Machine to Machine (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT), held an interoperability testing event from 14 to 16 September 2015. This was an important milestone to validate interoperability and end-to-end functionality of the oneM2M Release 1 Specifications.

oneM2M partners ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and TTA (Telecommunications Technology Association of Korea) co-hosted the event at the ETSI headquarters, in Sophia-Antipolis, France, with support from the European Commission.

29 organizations and companies came together to test their equipment against each other. The result was a resounding success: the participants successfully demonstrated interoperability of their oneM2M implementations across a number of different use cases. Participants also fed back clarifications and enhancements to the oneM2M specifications – another important outcome.

Dr. Enrico Scarrone of Telecom Italia, vice-chairman of oneM2M’s Steering Committee, stated:
“With this successful event attracting so many companies, we have demonstrated multi-vendor interoperability which is so important for IoT service providers.”

Dr. Omar Elloumi of Alcatel Lucent, oneM2M’s Technical Plenary Chair explains:

“The industry is juggling between several IoT technologies, trying to guess which one will dominate. oneM2M doesn’t aim to pick winners. Our Release 2 specifications, currently under development, provide an interworking framework across IoT protocols, including OMA’s LightWeight M2M, AllSeen Alliance’s AllJoyn and the Open Interconnect Consortium (OIC), preserving the investments already made in each.”

He adds: “This is the ‘missing link’ which will help accelerate IoT deployments.”

Prof. JaeSeung Song of Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI), oneM2M’s Test Working Group Chair, outlined plans for future events:
“With high demand from many vendors worldwide, oneM2M plans to hold two interoperability events per year. The next interoperability event will be held May 2015 in Korea, also co-hosted by TTA and ETSI.”

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Global leaders with synergistic activities across lifecycle of IoT implementation sharing stakeholders’ expertise on IoT requirements and standards gaps.

IEEE, the world’s largest professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for humanity, today announced the Industrial Internet Consortium® (IIC) and the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) are collaborating toward development of a comprehensive architecture for an interoperable Internet of Things (IoT) around the world. The Industrial Internet Consortium and the IEEE P2413 Architectural Framework for the Internet of Things (IoT) Working Group are sharing their stakeholders’ expertise on requirements for the industrial IoT and gaps in interoperability standards under terms of a liaison agreement.

Dr. Richard Soley, executive director, Industrial Internet Consortium, said:

“The IIC brings together the organizations and technologies necessary to accelerate growth of the industrial Internet by identifying, assembling and promoting best practices learned through the development of IIC testbeds, and our work with IEEE-SA in the IoT sector is aligned with those goals.”

“Harmonization of architecture and standards in the Internet of Things is critical for growing the market. The IIC and IEEE-SA are two globally recognized leaders with synergistic activities across the full lifecycle of IoT implementation, and this liaison agreement stands to help ensure that industrial IoT requirements are met both in IEEE P2413 and other architectural-framework standards.”

The Industrial Internet Consortium is an open membership organization, with 185 members to date, formed to accelerate the development, adoption and widespread use of interconnected machines and devices, intelligent analytics and people at work. Under terms of the liaison agreement with the IEEE P2413 working group, the Industrial Internet Consortium is to supply IoT requirements from the industrial perspective.

The IEEE P2413 working group, under terms of the agreement, is to provide the Industrial Internet Consortium with draft specifications for the standard that it is developing, as well as a gap analysis relative to current IoT standards. IEEE P2413 is envisioned as an architectural framework for IoT, proposing common definitions and a reference model that defines secure relationships among various IoT verticals (transportation, healthcare, etc.) and common architecture elements.

“With IoT innovation already so rapidly paced around the world, cooperation and coordination among the leading global organizations in the space is required to ensure that momentum is not stalled and progress toward a robust and interoperable IoT is achieved as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible,” said Oleg Logvinov, chair of the IEEE P2413 working group and director special assignments, Industrial and Power Conversion Division, STMicroelectronics.

“The IEEE-SA began convening cross-discipline workshops and roundtables among global IoT leaders years ago, and those conversations have led to a number of important activities both across and beyond IEEE. The IEEE IoT Initiative and IEEE Internet Initiative are among the examples, as now is the IEEE P2413 working group’s collaboration with the IIC.”

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The Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC) today announced the formation of a new Working Group (TPC-IoT), tasked with developing industry standard benchmarks for both hardware and software platforms associated with the Internet of Things (IoT).

The IoT ecosystem contains a complex mix of technologies and products from data collection and data curation to complex analytics. As the number of interconnected platforms continues to multiply, vendors and customers increasingly require an impartial means of comparing performance, cost-of-ownership and energy consumption across a widening array of hardware and software systems.

“The Internet of Things is revolutionizing the entire technology landscape, and impacts industries across all major sectors,” said Raghunath Nambiar, distinguished engineer at Cisco and elected chairman of the new TPC-IoT Working Group.

“Analyst firm IDC predicts that the worldwide IoT market will grow to $1.7 trillion by the year 2020. To put that in perspective, only 16 economies in the world had gross domestic product exceeding $1 trillion in 2014. Formation of this Working Group is the first major step in bringing industry and the research community together – to develop a set of standardized workloads and metrics – which enable fair comparisons across technologies and products.”

Nambiar continued:

“The TPC – with its lengthy history as one of the most respected standards bodies in the world – is perfectly positioned to develop such standards.”

“Year after year, the TPC continues to introduce new Working Groups and define new metrics, to meet the needs of a continually evolving industry.”

Since 2009, the TPC’s annual Technology Conference on Performance Evaluation and Benchmarking (TPCTC) has served as a forum for leading vendors and researchers to gather and identify innovative areas for benchmark research and development. The TPCTC has had a sustained impact on benchmark exploration, and past conferences have resulted in the creation of benchmark committees in Virtualization, Data Integration and Big Data. Most recently in 2014, IoT was identified as an area for benchmark development, prompting TPC-IoT’s formation.

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Forum will drive standards and counter fragmentation in licensed and unlicensed wireless M2M market.

The Wireless IoT Forum launched today to support and promote the deployment of the Internet of Things worldwide. The Forum has been created to drive the widespread adoption of wireless wide-area networking technologies in both licensed and unlicensed spectrum. It will work with key stakeholders from across the value chain to agree requirements that inform and accelerate standards development and deployments. The Forum is set to Announce Founding Members at the M2M World Congress in London on 28 April 2015.

The Wireless IoT Forum will strive to ensure market representation for companies building the ecosystem and work to promote and market the benefits for the complete ecosystem including: fixed and wireless network operators, infrastructure providers, app developers in utilities, government and specialist SMEs, semiconductor vendors, radio technology providers, module developers, systems integrators and vertical end-users.

It also announced that Will Franks had been appointed as Chairman and William Webb as CEO. Franks was previously CTO and Founder of Ubiquisys, the small cell vendor that was acquired by Cisco for $310m. Webb also currently holds the position of President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and has also held senior positions with Ofcom.

“The wireless Internet of Things is bringing connectivity and control to an order of magnitude more devices, however there is a very real risk of fragmented standards and technologies holding back the development of the market,” said William Webb, CEO of the Wireless IoT Forum. “There has also been a tremendous amount of work done in the IoT world across a wide range of technologies. As in the cellular world, the success of this will lie in the promotion of open standards. The Forum will work tirelessly to make this a reality in the IoT world.”

Will Franks, Chairman of the Wireless IoT Forum, said:

“Successful wireless technologies have always been founded on interoperability, open standards, and a focus on the demands of end-users. The Forum is committed to securing these conditions and working with all major stakeholders to ensure successful and timely deployment of the Internet of Things worldwide.”

“We are delighted to have helped bring together key industry players with the common goal of driving standardisation and interoperability. These players have the vision to recognise the need to collaborate to create robust technology platforms while competing to create dynamic markets.”

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oneM2M unveils Release 1 standards to ensure optimised M2M interworking and create a foundation platform for IoT devices and applications.

The era of widespread deployment of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology and the foundation for the Internet of Things (IoT) advanced significantly today when oneM2M, the global standards initiative for M2M and the IoT, issued its Release 1 global standards.

More than 200 member companies from across the world contributed to Release 1’s development through the seven leading ICT standards development organisations and five industry consortia that founded oneM2M.

oneM2M’s Release 1 is a set of 10 specifications, all publicly available from oneM2M’s website, covering requirements, architecture, API specifications, security solutions and mapping to common industry protocols such as CoAP, MQTT and HTTP. oneM2M Release 1 also makes use of OMA and Broadband Forum specifications for Device Management capabilities. Release 1 provides sufficient building blocks to enable today’s generation of M2M and IoT applications to interwork with each other.

Dr Omar Elloumi, Head of M2M and Smart Grid Standards at Alcatel-Lucent and oneM2M Technical Plenary Chair, said:

“Release 1 utilises well-proven protocols to allow applications across industry segments to communicate with each other as never before – not only moving M2M forward but actually enabling the Internet of Things.”

“Having such a set of specifications working together at the service layer to truly stitch M2M together will allow service providers to support applications and services across a range of industries. This opens up a whole new world – a future of seamless interaction to transform the way we all work and play in the future.”

“The horizontal service platform we have created is already useable over several underlying transport technologies, such as Wi-Fi, fixed-line, and cellular. This reduces the complexity for the M2M application developer, allows lower CAPEX and OPEX for the service providers and creates a world where ultimately people will interact more seamlessly with other people and machines in their daily lives,” he added.

oneM2M Release 1 follows the announcement last August of oneM2M’s Candidate Release specifications – the first publication of the specifications which have now become Release 1. The Candidate Release was circulated for comment and amendment by the industry. In December a highly successful showcase event took place in Europe, where demonstrations were conducted by leading technology companies and organisations.

“But this is just the start of our role in the process. We now need to work on making the whole experience of using M2M much easier for everyone, as well as looking to achieve further seamless interworking with other IoT technologies through collaboration with the groups working on them,” added Dr Elloumi.

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TIA, Founding Member of oneM2M, Says Initial Document is First Step towards Global M2M / IoT Standard.

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the leading association representing the manufacturers and suppliers of high-tech communications networks, announced today that oneM2M’s initial Candidate Release of Technical Specifications is now open for public comment.  TIA is a founding member of oneM2M, the global partnership dedicated to developing standards for Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications and Internet-of-Things (IoT).

This Candidate Release of Technical Specifications is the first step towards internationally recognized M2M standards, and will help further oneM2M’s goal of creating an M2M Service Layer that will enable scalable global deployment of M2M IoT implementation while allowing interoperability within existing standards.

The public comment phase of oneM2M’s Candidate Release of Technical Specifications will end on November 1, 2014, and the updated initial Candidate Release will be approved by the oneM2M Technical Plenary in January 2015.

As a founding member of oneM2M and through its own standards work, TIA is continuing to make positive advances into development standardization, both nationally and internationally.  A major function of TIA is the writing and maintenance of voluntary industry standards and specifications.  These activities are carried out by the volunteer members of TIA engineering committees.

On the public TIA standards pages, users will find standards documents, as well as more information about the TIA Engineering Committees responsible for these standards.  TIA is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). 

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New report from Machina Research explores the diversity, importance and impact of IoT standards including initiatives such as HyperCat, OMA LightweightM2M, OneM2M and Weightless.

Machina Research today published its latest report, “Standards for the Internet of Things”. The report examines existing and emerging standards for communications, connectivity, networking, service layers, data abstraction and discoverability.
The key findings are as follows:

• While there is today a mess of proprietary and open standards in the IoT, Machina Research expects that open standards will generally dominate.
• Growth in the IoT is currently delayed by the existence of multiple competing technologies and platforms. For ‘Subnets of Things’ to give way to the Internet of Things requires the emergence of a small number of leading solutions across connectivity and service layers.
• The diversity of requirements within the IoT means that there will be no single ‘winner’ in terms of wireless standards. Different technologies will be needed in different circumstances.
• OneM2M should become the de facto reference framework for interfacing between multiple communications networks, assuming the bureaucracy implicit in standards developments organisations (SDOs) doesn’t delay it.
• The standards discussion will continue to evolve in the direction of abstraction, semantics, and discoverability. This is particularly evident in the work done by OMA with the LightweightM2M protocol, the Eclipse Foundation, HyperCat and AllJoyn.
• Standardisation will take time. We expect that the foreseeable future will be dominated by ‘Subnets of Things’ that coalesce around common ownership of data or common cause of data owners.

Commenting on the findings, report author William Webb said:

“Currently, what has been termed the Internet of Things is a jumble of open and proprietary standards, with a lot of vertical and horizontal silos. Realistically, to move from this ‘Internet of Silos’ to the Internet of Things is going to require standardisation.”

“The emergence of a small number of leading solutions in the various spaces of local connectivity, wide area connectivity and service or application layer would simplify application development and allow industry to coalesce around a few global standards.”

Matt Hatton, Director at Machina Research commented:
“Unpicking the complexity of the standards environment is an important thing for our clients and we’re delighted to have pulled together such an extensive study looking at all the key developments.”

Turning to the findings he said:
“Clearly the development of standards is going to be critical for the Internet of Things to reach its huge potential. Today the IoT isn’t really worthy of the ‘Internet’ moniker. Greater standardisation is implicit in evolving from what we’ve previously termed machine-to-machine (M2M) to a true Internet of Things.”

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Industry-leading companies form Thread Group to create simple, secure and low-power network for the home and its connected products.

Recognizing the need for a new and better way to connect products in the home, seven companies today announced that they’ve joined forces to form the Thread Group and develop Thread, a new IP-based wireless networking protocol. The charter of the Thread Group is to guide the adoption of the Thread protocol. Thread Group founding members consist of industry-leading companies including Yale Security, Silicon Labs, Samsung Electronics, Nest Labs, Freescale® Semiconductor, Big Ass Fans and ARM.

While currently available 802.15.4 networking technologies have their own advantages, each also has critical issues that prevent the promise of the Internet of Things (IoT) from being realized. These include lack of interoperability, inability to carry IPv6 communications, high power requirements that drain batteries quickly, and “hub and spoke” models dependent on one device (if that device fails, the whole network goes down). With Thread, product developers and consumers can easily and securely connect more than 250 devices into a low-power, wireless mesh network that also includes direct Internet and cloud access for every device.

“Existing wireless networking approaches were introduced long before the Internet of Things gained ground,” said Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Google, and advisor to the Thread Group.

“The Thread protocol takes existing technologies and combines the best parts of each to provide a better way to connect products in the home.”

“A number of networking solutions and platforms have been introduced to address the growing demand for connected products in the home,” said Lisa Arrowsmith, associate director, connectivity, smart homes and smart cities, IHS Technology.

“Built on well-proven standards, including IEEE 802.15.4, IETF IPv6 and 6LoWPAN, Thread represents a resilient, IP-based solution for the rapidly growing Internet of Things.”

Not Just Another Standard

Unlike many existing technologies or IoT approaches, Thread is not an application protocol or a connectivity platform for many types of disparate networks. Thread is an IPv6 networking protocol built on open standards, designed for low-power 802.15.4 mesh networks. Existing popular application protocols and IoT platforms can run over Thread networks. A version of Thread is already being used successfully in Nest products today.

A Better Network for Developers

Using proven standards and IPv6 technology with 6LoWPAN as its foundation, Thread offers product developers numerous technological advantages over existing wireless standards:

• Reliable networks: Thread offers robust self-healing mesh networks that scale to hundreds of devices with no single point of failure. Devices are ready when people need them.
• Secure networks: Thread networks feature secure, banking-class encryption. Thread closes identified security holes found in other wireless protocols and provides worry-free operation.
• Simple connectivity: Thread devices are simple to install with a smartphone, tablet or computer. Consumers can securely connect Thread devices in the home to each other and to the cloud for easy control and access from anywhere.
• Low power: Thread supports battery-operated devices as part of a home network. This allows the devices that people use every day – including thermostats, lighting controls, safety and security products – to be a part of the network without requiring constant charging or frequent battery changes.

Millions of existing 802.15.4 wireless devices already on the market can run Thread with just a software enhancement — no new hardware required. Thread is designed for quick implementation and deployment of devices throughout the home.

Easy to Set Up, Easy to Use

Thread is designed with a new security architecture that allows consumers to simply and securely add and remove products to the network via a smartphone, tablet or computer. Thread’s mesh network technology provides improved reliability and coverage anywhere in the home and Thread products will be tested to ensure that they work together effortlessly and securely right out of the box. Thread products will also bear the Thread logo, indicating they have been certified for quality, security and interoperability — and to help consumers identify them on the market.

Thread Group Membership

The Thread Group is focused on educating product developers and consumers on the benefits of Thread through marketing and rigorous, meaningful product certification. The Thread Group will offer two tiers of membership, Sponsor and Contributor.

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UK tech consortium delivers HyperCat – a new way for machines to work together.

A consortium of more than 40 UK-based technology companies funded by the UK’s innovation agency, Technology Strategy Board, has delivered on the first phase of its initiative to accelerate the widespread move to the Internet of Things (IoT). HyperCat is a new open IoT specification that allows machines to work together over the Internet and for applications to discover and make sense of data automatically without human intervention.

In just 12 months and with £6.4 million funding from the Technology Strategy Board, development teams from major companies including ARM, BT and IBM have worked alongside UK start-ups and UK University Departments to break down vertical data silos and find a foundation for connected products and applications to interoperate.

The HyperCat specification is an extremely simple yet powerful, thin interoperability layer for the IoT, which allows applications to explore what data and resources are available on a specific data hub, or search for particular types of resource across the Internet. For example, if an application only understands temperature measurements, HyperCat provide a means to search for and discover this type of data – buried amongst other data that the application may not understand.

“HyperCat has been designed to move us from the Internet of Silos to the Internet of Things,” explains Pilgrim Beart, CEO of IoT start-up 1248.

“Previously, applications were vertically-integrated, working only with specific services, which confines data to narrow vertical silos. HyperCat enables apps to discover data across all services, freeing machines from the human programmer bottleneck and allowing a many-to-many relationship to develop, which is the key to IoT.”

“The forces for the modularisation of IoT are creating a ground swell that will bring radical changes to the computer industry”, said Justin Anderson, CEO and Founder of IoT company Flexeye. “As new entrants to the IoT market strive to deliver revolutionary solutions at an extraordinary pace, HyperCat will help ensure that these players can securely speak a common language. I’m confident that the Technology Strategy Board’s investment in this interoperability initiative has helped put the UK in a global leadership position and will in turn support the UK economy by creating new jobs and attracting foreign investment to our shores.”

“We are using HyperCat at our Cambridge headquarters to share data such as office occupancy, energy use and even car park lighting between different applications,” said Amyas Phillips, IoT Research Entrepreneur at ARM. “By linking our infrastructure in real-time we are reducing our energy costs and generating other information including external temperature data that others can use. This is a research project but it has proven tangible benefits that consumers and Enterprises can gain from a more connected world.”

“While there is still the need for applications and services to agree on standard ways to describe data – so called ontologies – HyperCat offers a common approach to describing the information held on data hubs, thereby allowing people to find data relevant to their specific needs more quickly and easily. This will drive commercial use of the hubs and lowers the barrier to participation, particularly for SMEs,” added John Davies, Head of Semantic Technology at BT.

“We’ve been able to create whole new applications very quickly,” commented Andy Stanford-Clark, Master Inventor at IBM UK. “For example, we can take illumination data from streetlights belonging to another project cluster and display it on our own application. Being able to explore the HyperCat metadata in human and machine readable formats makes it easy to mash-up new applications.”

“Over the past few years the Technology Strategy Board has brought people together in workshops and competitions to work out what the barriers to IoT really are, which proved an excellent foundation for this work,” said Andrew Tyrer, Digital Lead Specialist at the Technology Strategy Board. “We’re delighted that so many companies managed to co-operate so successfully and are excited by the potential for HyperCat in the future to put the UK at the forefront of IoT development and deployment.”

The Eight Technology Strategy Board Clusters
The Technology Strategy Board project involved large brand names, IoT start-ups and Universities. They formed into eight clusters, each focussed on a particular application. Each cluster used the HyperCat specification to create interoperability within their cluster and then between clusters:

• Distance (Internet of Schools Things) includes: ScienceScope, Intel, Xively, Explorer HQ, Stakeholder Design, University of Birmingham’s Urban Climate Laboratory, UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, and The Open University Department of Computing
• EyeHub includes: Flexeye, Open Data Institute, Surrey University, IBM UK, Guildford Borough Council
• IoT-Bay (an Interoperability Hub for IoT Services) includes: SH&BA, EDF Energy, IBM UK, Westminster City Council, BRE and University of Bristol
• i-MOVE (Internet of Moving Objects and Vehicles Ecosystem) includes: Aimes Grid Services, BT, Traak, Avanti, Placr, Merseyside Transport
• International Airport includes: LivingPlanIT, London City Airport, Milligan Retail, Critical Software, AppSherpas, HWC, CrowdVision, and ECM
• OpenIoT includes: 1248.io, ARM, AlertMe, Enlight, Intellisense.io and Badger Pass
• Smart Streets includes:InTouch, Carillion, BalfourBeatty, Amey, Lancaster University
• Stride (Smart Transport IoT Data Ecosystem) includes: BT, Aimes, Ctrl-Shift, University of Cambridge, Dartt Ltd

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