The Internet of Things (IoT) phrase is quite a buzzword these days and its definition will vary widely depending on who you ask. The main concept, however, is that devices and appliances that would traditionally function independently are able to communicate with other data sources or devices to enhance their own functionality and efficiency.

1. 80 GlobeAsia March 2014
Technology
he Internet of Things
(IoT) phrase is quite a
buzzword these days and
its definition will vary
widely depending on who
you ask. The main concept, however, is
that devices and appliances that would
traditionally function independently
are able to communicate with other
data sources or devices to enhance
their own functionality and efficiency.
While this sounds great in theory,
the fact is that there is a war brewing.
Competing manufacturers determined
to make their products the standard
have led to a crowded marketplace with
multiple smart products that are unable
to communicate with each other. This
market fragmentation forces custom-
ers into purchasing products within a
certain product line or manufacturer to
stave off interoperability issues. In the
end everybody loses.
Why it’s revolutionary
Before we delve too much into the
controversy it’s a good idea to learn
what’s at stake. Since Google’s acquisi-
tion of Nest last month for $3.2 billion,
it seems like IoT is on the lips of every
tech blogger and industry insider. The
hype is not undeserved. Once devices
start to communicate with each other
a remarkable thing happens; they get
smarter and become greater than the
sum of their parts. The IoT movement
could well impact every aspect of the
way we live, work and play in the future
and the revolution is not tomorrow, it
is happening today.
Imagine workplace sensors that
detect defective components and auto-
idownloadblog.com
Can the Internet of Things
survive the coming war?

2. March 2014 GlobeAsia 81
By Jason Fernandes
matically order replacements from the
3D printer downstairs. Imagine sensors
embedded in soil that allow your plants
to actually turn on the sprinklers in
your garden when the moisture read-
ings are low. The potential is practically
limitless and as these products learn to
integrate better, we will soon begin to
see a real improvement in our lives.
According to IDC, the potential
market for IoT technologies could hit
$9 trillion as soon as 2020. A General
Electric study claims that the IoT mar-
ket could add as much as $15 trillion to
global GDP, an amount they describe
as approximately “...the size of today’s
US economy.” The biggest problem
with this rosy outlook is the lack of
specificity regarding what exactly “the
internet of things” really is. The devil is
in the details they say and that remains
true here.
A lack of standards
The concept of IoT involves devices
communicating and sometimes con-
trolling other devices without human
interaction, but that’s about as far as
anybody has got to a consensus. The
definition of IoT could include, for
example, a refrigerator that utilizes a
built-in Android app and processor to
automatically re-order supplies when
they get depleted or notify owners of
food expiry dates.
On the other hand the definition
would also include gadgets like the Bel-
kin WeMo or Phillips Hue that feature
a built-in Wi-Fi chip for communica-
tion with the internet. Anybody with a
rudimentary understanding of tech can
tell you that while these both fall under
the definition of IoT; the fridge is much
‘smarter’ and capable of conducting
much more complex operations in re-
sponse to data then the WeMo.
The same is true for the Nest, which
features a built in Wi-Fi chip that puts
the device directly online, but is capa-
Once devices start to
communicate with each
other a remarkable thing
happens; they get smarter
and become greater than
the sum of their parts.
ble of limited processing outside of the
cloud. Still other IoT devices amount
to little more than sensors that require
a higher-level device like a tablet or
smartphone to actually transmit data to
the internet before they can be classi-
fied (even loosely) as IoT devices.
That two components with such
widely varying capabilities could ever
be lumped in the same category betrays
the major issue that lack of consensus
has wrought and that is a correspond-
ing lack of standards. Manufacturers
are stymied because it’s not possible to
design hardware standards that would
function equally well for devices that
vary so widely in capability.
This has led to manufacturers creat-
ing their own proprietary standards.
To make things even more compli-
cated, some IoT devices from the same
manufacturers are incompatible even
with each other. As Mike Elgin put it
in a recent Computer World article, “It
seems to me that the so-called ‘Internet
of Things’ will be littered with multiple,
warring, incompatible standards, pro-
tocols and systems for connectivity...”
Christopher Mims of Quartz la-
mented that IoT has “...yet to find its
HTML.” These critics are not alone.
Their concerns are shared by others in
the industry who wish that everybody
would agree on a certain standard and
stick to it.
Both Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy
and NFC have been bandied about as
possible options, particularly because
of their efficiency. Quite a few devices
have begun to use Bluetooth LE with
great success since its power consump-
tion is minimal. NFC on the other
hand, while cheaper, has very limited
programming possibilities and requires
a very close range to function. Both
these options are imperfect, however,
and there are only so many existing
wireless standards to choose from.
The CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance has
predictably argued that IoT devices
should just use the existing Wi-Fi stan-
dard and he has a point. Consumers
are comfortable with Wi-Fi, most have
Wi-Fi access and this would likely be
the path of least resistance. Further, it
almost seems like a no-brainer when
you consider that this is the only way
Bluetooth LE or NFC devices can even
communicate with each other
The biggest hole in the Wi-Fi ap-
proach is cost and efficiency. Many of
these IoT devices amount to nothing
more than sensors communicating via
Bluetooth or NFC with smarter devices
that know what to do with the informa-
tion. These more rudimentary systems
would needlessly balloon in cost if they
were forced to communicate via Wi-Fi.
This is also an incredibly inefficient
solution since these devices would have
little or no use for the massive band-
width that Wi-Fi provides.
Another serious potential problem
is power drain. When one considers
that the home of the future could have
well over 100 IoT devices, this could all
add up to a fair amount of cumulative
power drain and a great deal of band-
width wastage. These factors become
especially relevant when you consider
that the agreed-upon standard would
likely trickle down to thousands of
products.
A few years ago, Qualcomm tried

3. 82 GlobeAsia March 2014
Technology
to address this problem with the Allseen Alli-
ance, based on its own technology. The product
of this alliance, Qualcomm’s AllJoin, is a step in
the right direction because it is able to automati-
cally pair with multiple smart devices regardless
of the protocol they are functioning on. The
device automatically negotiates an appropriate
connection based on the signal it detects.
This is definitely a step in the right direction
but is it truly necessary? Wouldn’t it be great if
we could plug these devices directly into an ex-
isting mesh-like web that already has well-estab-
lished standards, protocols and infrastructure?
We already have such a network and it’s called
the internet. Qualcomm’s AllJoin amounts to
a hardware solution to a problem that can be
solved much more efficiently through software
coupled with the power of the internet.
A software solution
People like Elgin and other commentators
calling for standards are missing the point be-
cause it really does not matter if these devices
can communicate with each other directly. It’s
enough that they can each communicate with
the internet. There is no reason why software
cannot be the bridge between these systems.
Indeed, there are a handful of companies at-
tempting to build just such a software-based IoT
standard.
Companies like SmartThings and Things-
Speak hope to be the online brain that powers
future IoT devices. These software standards are
intriguing but even more interesting are online
services like IFTTT.com that let you create con-
nections between web content ‘channels’ like
Twitter or Google Drive, and physical devices
like the Belkin Wemo and Phillip Hue, who
have incidentally recently introduced IFTTT
channels.
Since IFTTT core focus is content-based
web services like Facebook, Flickr and the like,
one can use IFTTT as a sort of 21st century
Rosetta Stone, translating between various web
services and hardware devices that would oth-
erwise have no means at all to communicate. A
link between hardware and software will allow
you to constantly enhance your hardware’s func-
tionality by allowing it to exchange information
with external data sources.
Further opening up possibilities is the recent
introduction of a SmartThings channel as well.
Since SmartThings could soon power any num-
ber of smart devices, their channel on IFTTT
will make it possible for SmartThings to com-
municate with web and social media services as
well as other competing hardware standards like
WeMo and Hue.
The internet’s greatest strength thus far has
been connecting people from vastly different
cultures, facilitating communication and being
a bridge between different peoples. There is no
reason why the internet cannot also play such a
role for devices as well, translating between vari-
ous standards.
Given the exponential growth of the IoT
phenomenon we could soon see a vastly greater
number of devices connected to the internet
than actual people. Perhaps the true potential of
the internet has finally been unlocked not as a
network of people, but one of connected devices
working together diligently to forever change
our lives.
Jason Fernandes is a tech commentator and the
founder of SmartKlock.
The internet’s
greatest
strength thus
far has been
connecting
people from
vastly different
cultures,
facilitating
communication
and being a
bridge between
different
peoples. There
is no reason
why the
internet cannot
also play such a
role for devices
as well.
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