Nest Bricks Revolv: The Importance of Open IoT

This news illustrates very clearly why it is SO IMPORTANT to use open standards in IoT!

For IoT vendors, that is, startups with IoT products, this news should underscore the importance of choosing an open standards-based platform. You’ve put your time, effort, and hopes into your device, the last thing you want is to have your platform quit on you at a critical moment. The platform that helps you bring your product to market needs to be based on open standards, so that you aren’t locked in to any single service provider.

Open standards-based IoT supports longer product lifecycles. Open standards are critical to ensure a stable product offering: If one company goes under, or simply decides to stop offering their service, open standards-based IoT can continue to be supported. This is because the access protocol is transparent.

From the CBC News story:

“customers, especially those in business and government buying long-lasting devices such as smart meters and streetlights — need to push back against vendors and demand solutions to support connected devices over the longer term.”

We couldn’t agree more! We would also suggest that both consumers and vendors of IoT need to ask for open standards. Consumers should require this of each company they buy from, and vendors should be sure to ask their partners for open standards-based IoT products.

Finally, an important note: Be sure that the IoT standard in question is open. Make sure it is governed by an established standards organization such as ISO or OGC, rather than simply an industry group calling their common protocol a standard.

For more information: Check out OGC’s IoT standards, including OGC SWE and OGC SensorThings. For an example of an IoT platform based on an open OGC IoT standard, check out the SensorUp SensorThings Platform.