IoT devices should work together better, says search giant
Making IoT devices work together better should be the focus of IoT development, according to Google.
Speaking at the Bluetooth World conference this week in Santa Clara, Google senior developer advocate Wayne Piekarski, said that “orchestration” is needed. He defined this as multiple connected devices being aware of each other and able to communicate to each other.
According to a report by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, Piekarski said; “when you walk in your home, the lights come on and coffee machine goes on.”
“People don’t want to control a single light bulb, they’re going to work with multiple devices, which means working with multiple manufacturers.”
The most likely experience for many IoT users is one product controlled by one app. Piekarski said this would be better if that was “decoupled” so that app developers can “write the app but the device doesn’t have to be made by the same company.”
Piekarski said that Google was working with firm Brillo and Weave to overcome this issue.
Also read: Google wants you to build the next great Internet of Things product
IoT and The Physical Web
Google is also working on an open source effort called “The Physical Web” that allows connected devices to work together without the need for separate apps. Google product strategy manager Scott Jenson said in a panel discussion that this was one of the most popular projects on open-source collaboration platform Github.
He added that with the increasing demand for connected devices, users will want more features, such as voice commands and “all these integrations you can do once people get a feel for the Internet of Things.”
However, Piekarski warned that there were security issues with some product on the market and he expected a security breach would happen and this then would make developers take security more seriously.
He said that vendors were “sending packets over the network un-encrypted and we haven’t had anything bad happen yet but something’s going to happen where someone’s house catches on fire.”
Paul Bolt, vice president of practice area UK, at Rackspace, told Internet of Business that privacy is another point of consideration for IoT.
“Putting a lot of information in one location means it is a bigger target for criminals, and in light of recent data breaches, people are cautious about how their information is used. As the European commission is already in the process of drafting new General Data Protection Regulation, this may be the opportunity to ensure that the new laws accommodate the sharing of information that will become the norm in the developing world of IoT where the connected device manufacturer and third parties may wish to share user data,” he said.
AdaptiveMobile’s CTO, Ciaran Bradley, told IoB that a new security architecture is required to deal with the increasing connectivity of devices belonging to the Internet of Things.
“There will be billions of devices connected through IoT – many unable to run traditional endpoint security – and there is no definitive ruling on who has responsibility to enforce this security and who is liable when a vulnerability is exploited,” he said.
Also read: Despite Google’s best efforts, are we building the Internet of Mess?