I find it personally distressing that there’s no umbrella organization advocating for the #IoT and building public awareness of its existence. Even more, a robust association would promote contact among #IoT companies, which I’m confident would result in more synergistic apps and collaborations (one indicator of the potential? Runkeeper now has more than 100 partners through its Health Graph API for tying together different health and fitness applications, services, and devices).
That’s why I was pleased to see that 10 firms in the field announced at CES formation of The Internet of Things Consortium. Most of them are startups, although the group does include Logitech. They are focused on home automation: “The IoT Consortium is primarily focused on those Internet enabled devices and related software services that directly touch consumers in the form of home automation, entertainment, and productivity.”
Their mission is to facilitate “cooperation between hardware, software, and service providers. One of the goals of the consortium is to see billions of connected devices that benefit from communication with other devices and services.”
The big boys in the field have the IPSO Alliance, but its mandate is limited to advocating for “the Internet Protocol as the network for the connection of Smart Objects.” When will we get an umbrella organization that will advocate for the IoT as a whole?
I plan to make my own small contribution to this effort by hosting a Meetup for all Boston-area researchers and companies sometime in February. Stay tuned for details!
