Bench Talk

The ability to track energy use on almost a device-by-device basis and use energy when it is least expensive is another potential for significant savings. Controlling things seems to be a compelling application for the Internet of Things.

At a recent energy conference there was a great deal of discussion on how the commercial real estate market might leverage the current infatuation with smart devices, and buzz around the Internet of Things to help propel building automation technology into widespread adoption. It would seem that the technology maturity, price points, and market desire are finally beginning to intersect. In the final analysis many experts, including technologists, energy managers, engineers, and real estate professionals seemed to converge on the notion that lighting will be the key technology that will help other control technologies, such as HVAC, to finally gain greater adoption rates.

The Internet of Things (IoT) will provide an avalanche of data. Remote sensors for just about every ‘Thing’ will provide data on the location of cars, busses, packages, and your dog, as well as measurements of your heart rate, blood oxygen level, and even the amount of half and half in your refrigerator. Lots and lots of data.

In the Internet of Things era, automotive infotainment’s primary role is to intelligently connect the car and all of its subsystems to the driver and passengers’ world; enriching the driving experience and enhancing the safety of the vehicle. Yet the rapid growth in audio and video devices, such as federally mandated backup cameras, lane-departure warning systems, traffic light recognition and collision avoidance sensors, will require more robust in-car networks – as Lucas Merian noted in a Computer World article, Ethernet is coming to cars.

It’s a familiar pattern; a new technology is introduced, everyone gets excited about its potential and then a seasoned engineer inquires if it can be exploited by the bad guys. Such security questions are now being asked about the Internet of Things (IoT); a network currently under development that makes today’s Internet look tiny in comparison.

Not much has been heard about IoT from Google after it acquired Nest (and its thermostat, smoke detector and Dropcam connected security cameras) but that came to an end in May. At the Google I/O developer’s conference, the company announced the Android-based Brillo operating system and the protocol Weave that will let Brillo-enabled devices communicate with each other. A developer preview of Brillo is coming in the third quarter and Wave in the fourth quarter. In case you’re wondering, Google chose the name Brillo as it’s a “scrubbed” version of Android. As Google always thinks big, the idea is that your “smart home” will be controlled by Android devices that talk to each other and have access to servers in the cloud.

As an engineer and cautionary gadget freak it’s hard to not be excited by the recent activity around the Internet of Things (IoT) and home automation. It gives me hope that we’ll soon be able to connect the dots and make all these systems work together in concert so we can orchestrate a beautiful, harmonious symphony of technology. Then I wake up.

Our pursuit of modern home automation can be readily observed if one looks at the archives from the various World Fairs dating as far back as the 1930s. While tantalizing possibilities have captured our imaginations, in practice the mass adoption of home automation technologies has yet to really take-off. Costs and lack of a common, interconnected protocol are often attributed as the root cause for the failure of home automation to launch. Perhaps though, home automation just hasn’t found it’s “killer app” yet. What might be needed is one must-have product that, while it stands alone in its first iteration, will drive people to adopt then demand more devices that interact with each other.

Much has been written about the trials and tribulations associated with the adoption of home automation technologies. The lack of mass consumer appeal is often attributed to high costs and lack of a simple, universal protocol. For the technically savvy, the idea of giving in to “vendor lock” by adopting a single company's product line has been too much to bear. However, for more affluent consumers this idea is not a problem as most of the time they rely on 3rd party installers to install and maintain their systems. This has left the DIY crowd to resort to more “hackable,” although way more complicated solutions, such as X10 products. In the end we have grown an ecosystem unsuitable for mass adoption. The niche market of affluent consumers is just lucrative enough for companies to continue to peddle proprietary solutions. The equally niche Maker- and DIY-market has been strong enough to attract those with the skills to homebrew a custom solution. Neither are good enough for the mass market.

When I was a kid, I used to watch a cartoon called “The Jetsons”, which was set in a future where flying cars fold up into suitcases, a dinner table automatically clears away the dishes (by smashing them and sweeping them up), and sassy robotic maids do all the housework. Although I’m still waiting for my flying car, some of today’s automation technologies are a lot closer to the future world of The Jetsons than you might think.