Why Compatibility is a Challenge in IoT

IoT interoperability 

Interoperability is defined as "the capability to operate together". Interoperability among IoT devices is a crucial challenge. There is a lack of essential interoperability in IoT ecosystems, making it challenging to connect devices and sensors seamlessly.

• Gartner identified interoperability as one of the top three challenges preventing IoT from achieving its full potential.
• According to McKinsey & Company, IoT interoperability could unlock more than $4 trillion in potential economic impact per year by 2025.

Recent research by the European project Unify-IoT found that more than 300 IoT platforms are currently available, and more are due to emerge. Platforms such as these promote their own IoT infrastructure, proprietary interfaces and protocols, and incompatible standards, formats, and semantics, creating closed ecosystems (also known as stovepipes and silos). Despite these limitations, the need for seamless interoperability, especially IoT interoperability, is growing.

The best way to understand IoT interoperability is to classify it. Due to heterogeneity, IoT interoperability issues can be viewed from different perspectives. There are heterogeneities everywhere, even in the physical world; for example, people speak various languages but communicate through translators (humans or tools) or by using similar languages. To realize the full potential of IoT ecosystems, the diverse elements (devices, communication, services, applications, etc.) must collaborate and communicate seamlessly. As shown in Figure, IoT interoperability can be viewed from different perspectives.

• device interoperability
• networking interoperability
• syntactic interoperability
• semantic interoperability
• platform interoperability

Solving the IoT interoperability challenge

There are several ways in which interoperability can pose a challenge:

• Limited connectivity among different transport protocols such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Zigbee.
• Devices from different manufacturers cannot be integrated.
• There are no set regulations or standards at the application level, making it difficult to combine and complement data from different sensors and devices.

There are two key areas companies are focusing on to improve interoperability:

• IoT standardization.
• Converged smart ecosystem.

IoT standardization

A significant way to facilitate interoperability between and within different domains is by using open standards. A standard is a framework of specifications that have been approved by a recognized regulatory body or are widely accepted and used in many industries.

Many technology companies and OEMs adopt open-source development and standards to develop interoperability solutions. Here are some of the groups working to improve IoT standardization:

1. AllSeen Alliance: Responsible for developing the open-source AllJoyn framework. With AllJoyn, devices and apps can discover and securely communicate with each other regardless of transport, operating system, or platform.
2. Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF): OCF has developed specs for a service-layer platform that allows discovery and communication between devices from different vendors and runs on multiple operating systems. OCF's reference implementation is called IoTivity.
3. oneM2M: The purpose of oneM2M is to develop a standard that satisfies the need for a shared service layer that can be integrated into both hardware and software.
4. Thread Group: Founded in July 2014, the Thread Group is the organization behind Thread. The Thread embedded networking stack is based on the 6LowPAN (low power wireless personal area networks) technology, allowing even small devices to be connected to the internet. The ZigBee Alliance and Thread are collaborating on enabling the ZigBee Cluster Library (branded "dot dot") to run over Thread networks.

Converged smart ecosystem

Consumers have high expectations for IoT. According to them, IoT solutions should be delivered and managed seamlessly, with services and products working together behind the scenes. Global brands are working together to create innovative partnerships to deliver seamless user experiences and seamless connections between devices.

Smart home brands such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung are embracing a "certified with" philosophy, which allows other companies to certify their products in order to participate in these ecosystems. Thus, global leaders can build smart ecosystems by combining products from different providers and standards. Certification should also mean seamless integration with other certified products in the same ecosystem.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Does the Internet of Things Work?

Smart devices that are powered by the Internet of Things gather data and then transmit it over the network they are connected to or perform a certain action based on the data.

Can IoT devices work without the Internet?

IoT devices do not necessarily require the Internet to function. All IoT devices, however, need a network connection to be able to communicate with each other or receive commands.

What are examples of IoT devices?

In our day and age, we are surrounded by IoT devices. Wearable health monitors, RFIDs, smart cars, connected appliances, virtual assistants, and so on are some of the IoT devices you can find all around you.

Why is it called the Internet of Things?

Internet of Things refers to extending the capability of the internet to interconnect things with a variety of other devices on a network.

Conclusion

In the process of developing IoT products, there are many challenges. In this article, we discuss a few major ones. If these challenges do not get addressed, you may be walking into a deep gorge without a torch.

IoT's success depends on improving interoperability. There have been a variety of proposals addressing this crucial issue since the emergence of IoT. Each proposal promotes a different approach to addressing this issue. In this article, we present a comprehensive overview of the topic based on these works.

Check out this link if you want to learn more about the Internet of Things(IoT).

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