Remote monitoring specialist TeamViewer is aiming to provide a GUI for the IoT generation, giving insight into how smart devices are functioning.
Online support and collaboration software company TeamViewer has released a new dedicated IoT solution to combine remote access, machine and monitoring capabilities.
IoT remote management software is a key enabling technology for the devices that we seek to bring online in smart cities, industrial civil engineering deployments and inside our connected homes.
As these software tools and platforms proliferate, TeamViewer’s differentiator may be its ability to access and control IoT devices from anywhere in the world.
Read more: TeamViewer: IoT project teams need to ‘think like CEOs’
A GUI for the IoT generation
In many ways, TeamViewer is aiming to provide a graphical user interface (GUI) for the IoT generation. The company argues that, although many smart entities are being developed with new advances looking to connected devices without the use of a screen (voice recognition, gesture control and so on), we still need to be realistic.
“These [new user interface paradigms] will take some time and not all industries will know how that will work for their business straight away. Graphical user interfaces are therefore still being used and are likely to be used for some time,” said the firm, in a media advisory.
TeamViewer IoT comes with support for Raspbian, an open source operating system born on the Raspberry Pi single-board computer well-suited to small modular device deployments. Alongside Raspbian, TeamViewer IoT can port to other Linux distributions.
Read more: Here to stay: Why the ‘plan, build, run’ model is still relevant to IoT
Aimed at the channel
To be clear on this product’s positioning, TeamViewer IoT is aimed at value added resellers (VARs), system integrators (SIs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and technology enthusiasts.
It is built with end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication and what TeamViewer cheekily calls its ‘Easy Access’ function – basically a route to connecting related devices within the same physical or virtual network, so that devices can share data without the need to provide an additional layer of credentials.
“With a TeamViewer account, users can quickly set up the web-based dashboard and install the software on a Raspberry Pi. Furthermore, TeamViewer provides an SDK plus an MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) API so users can collect the data they need and include it in their dashboard,” explained Raffi M. Kassarjian, the company’s general manager for emerging products.
Read more: ISO formalises MQTT foundational IoT standard
Wiggle your widgets, if you want
Kassarjian elaborates, saying that the dashboard is flexible enough to provide users with the possibility to tailor their widgets according to their needs. It also provides a means to trigger an alert when a critical metrics threshold is crossed.
Users can integrate the data – by means of a Cloud REST (Representational State Transfer) API – in a different system if they need to do so.
The technology should deliver business benefits in a variety of industries and use cases, according to Kassarjian. “In industrial settings, TeamViewer IoT allows production managers and equipment suppliers to increase machine productivity, monitor operational efficiency and carry out preventive maintenance from anywhere in the world. Additionally, building owners and operators can use [it] in conjunction with smart building technologies to monitor and optimise energy usage, space usage and long-term capacity planning,” he says.
IoT platforms are, obviously, proliferating and developing at an exponential space, so TeamViewer’s claims that it has ‘key differentiators’, unique positioning or has achieved an industry first are somewhat dubious.
But as we’ve said before on Internet of Business in relation to TeamViewer, technical teams working on IoT projects need to elevate their device deployments in the total IT stack and and look at the bigger operational opportunities that the IoT can bring. Giving users a more familiar GUI-feel connection point to these devices could well be a first step on that road.
Read more: Barriers to IoT adoption: Removing inhibitors may create new opportunities