Cisco Launches Alliance For the 'Internet of Things'

Yannis B. writes "This week, a group of leading technology vendors that includes Cisco, Sun, Ericsson, Atmel, Freescale, and embedded open source developers, founded the Internet Protocol for Smart Objects Alliance to promote the 'Internet of Things,' in which everyday objects such as thermometers, radiators, and light switches are given IP addresses and are connected to the Internet. Such IP-enabled 'smart objects' give rise to a wide range of applications, from energy-efficient homes and offices to factory equipment maintenance and hospital patient monitoring. For Slashdot readers who are interested in the underlying technology, a white paper written by well-known embedded open source developer Adam Dunkels and IETF ROLL working group chair JP Vasseur establishes the technical basis of the alliance (PDF)."

Just wait till the trolls get ahold of this stuff

you will wind up with a picture of the Goatse man emblazoned on your toast every morning.

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I was going to crack a joke too but after reading this I am laughing too hard to even bother. This can't be topped.

Re:Just wait till the trolls get ahold of this stu

Toastse! [3 (-o-) {]

The calls I'll receive in five years...

"Hi, this is Sandra from accounting- my pencil has a virus! It won't write words anymore and just keeps drawing a picture of a man doing... SOMETHING to his anus!"

Sigh...

"I'll be right there."

Still need cheaper Wi-fi chipsets for this to work

Nobody wants to run ethernet cable to their toaster... so I really think that making cheap Wi-fi chipsets is the answer here. Unfortunately it still costs at a very minimum $5+ to add wireless to something, so it's going to take a little while for a $2 light switch to get these.

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]

Re:Still need cheaper Wi-fi chipsets for this to w

You can already use electrical cabling for networking [broadbandbuyer.co.uk], and given that appliances are all going to have to be connected to power anyway that seems a logical method. It could also simplify discovery and autoconfiguration.

Re:Still need cheaper Wi-fi chipsets for this to w

making cheap Wi-fi chipsets is the answer here

If you read the announcement, you'll find that the major benefit of using a layered architecture such as IP is the ability to use different physical media, depending on the application.

For short-range applications, there are technologies that are both cheaper and more power-efficient than wifi. Off the top of my head, there's Zigbee [wikipedia.org], Bluetooth [wikipedia.org] and probably lots of others.

And for even lower range applications, nothing beats the cost of an infra-red diode [wikipedia.org].

Re:Still need cheaper Wi-fi chipsets for this to w

I don't think its a question of being wifi or cat 5. the bigger question is why the hell for?

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I don't know about you, but I don't want my toaster or my light switch given a public IP address, or any connectivity to anything at all.

My toaster has a function - make toast. I push the thingy down, it heats bread. I don't want it suggesting different toast-related foodstuffs, phoning home to see if it's allowed to make my toast today or catching fire because some leet H4XX0R has found a way to break in and override the thermal cutoff.

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Broadband over power is already terrible, and it will only get worse as more and more people plug devices in.

Y'know those little filter plugs the DSL company gives you for your analog phones? Imagine doing the same to every AC-powered load in your house.

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That, or you could just use X11 or a similar power line protocol.

X10 [wikipedia.org] might work better. ;)

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While I understand your humor, there are a few limiting factors about using X10 -- very little bandwidth and the inability to see the other "leg" of the house voltage -- which means that in a typical home in the US, half the outlets can't communicate with the other half*. X10 is also limited to 256 devices.

Supposedly, there are also reliability problems with the protocol, but I've never noticed them.

I use X10 at home for a few purposes, and it works well for what I need it to do (switching on/off ligh

you KNOW the RIAA is salivating

over the prospect of all DVRs and DVD players having an internet connection. How long before your DVD player has to phone home to see if you're allowed to watch that DVD?

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Blu-ray players already have an ethernet jack, that could plausibly be used for this in future if an (in)appropriate firmware upgrade was made.

Though I think the MPAA would care a lot more than the RIAA.

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Or worse, wait until your fridge has to phone up to find out if you've paid for the patents used in the food we eat every day...

There are some things which should just *not* be networked.

Or better yet, wait until it is the AC hooked up (as suggested in the summary) and then when someone decides that "this really important document must be sent priority" for some random thing and the network guy unplugs everything in the rack to send it over the T1... Right now we just loose the internet and the phones

A lot of information can be inferred from devices

For example, a room that uses a lot of heat/light could be a weed nursery. Warmer rooms in a house are more likely to be occupied (in cooler climates ;-). Your devices can effectively contribute to your online profile, if you network them that way.

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Alternatively you could use a firewall and a password.

Just sayin'.

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This is an IETF working group - Routing Over Low power and Lossy networks (ROLL). Like all IETF WG, it has a Charter [ietf.org] which you can read to find out more, and 4 outstanding Internet drafts (listed in the charter).

Re:Got more IPV6?

I've actually been waiting for both something like this and IPv6 for a long time, but I suspect the day when I can monitor the temperature of my fridge and oven as well as if they're powered on or not using SNMP is pretty far off.

/Mikael

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Perhaps reporting on the kind of cookies being consumed in my smart cookie jar, and my toothbrush can email my dentist if it detects a filling from too many cookies? Maybe they can work together?

Just block cookies.

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You'd still most likely have a "gateway machine", only it would only be doing packet filtering and not address translation, and this is a good thing since it allows end-to-end connectivity, one of the things that the internet protocol was supposed to help provide.

/Mikael

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IP addresses are a virtual commodity. if we run out of IPv4/IPv6 addresses, we'll simply create new address spaces as needed. that's not really a problem. it's like complaining about p2p file-sharers using too much bandwidth--these are infrastructure problems that aren't limited by physical resources. instead, this type of technological infrastructure naturally grows to meet demand.

it's not like we're facing an IP address shortage. AFAIK we haven't hit any technological hard limit regarding the maximum numb

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IP addresses are a virtual commodity. if we run out of IPv4/IPv6 addresses, we'll simply create new address spaces as needed. that's not really a problem.

Yes THEORETICALLY it's not a problem, but in case you haven't noticed, the move to IPv6 hasn't exactly been lightning fast. The move to IPv7/IPv8 is unlikely to be faster.

Re:Wasting IP addresses

It's not moving fast because there is, as of yet, no real need for it.

It's not as if we're down to our last can of IP addresses and after that, the entire world is going to collapse on us.

Necessity is the mother of invention. In this case, we projected that at one point necessity would dictate we need more IP addresses. So we invented. But that doesn't mean we need them yet.

When that time comes, it'll happen. It's good that we planned in advance and started putting the pieces in place. But until we really need it, calm the fuck down and relax. It'll happen when it happens and there's no need to be all doom and gloom about it.

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We will not run out of IPv6 addresses.

A 128bit addresses space really is enough for anyone. No, really.