Interoperability remains up in the air. Solid cloud platforms provide a feasible way to unify the fragmented smart home landscape. Unified smart home solutions provide consumers convenience; fragmented smart home market provides business opportunities for players. The platform providers try to monetize by creating value for their customers and speeding up time to market.
 
Software and cloud platform providers are developing solutions to enable interoperability among devices, regardless of what protocols their customers are using. They are protocol- and device-agnostic, and seek partnerships for cloud-to-cloud interoperation because they believe cooperation can enlarge the ecosystems of connected products and expand distribution channels. Manufacturers of connected products and service providers benefit from cost savings and time to market. They can expand their distribution channels to include additional retailers or service providers; the retailers and service providers can quickly add connected products to their portfolios.
 
To accelerate time to market and ensure compatibility, they offer reference designs for hardware companies. Zonoff creates hardware reference designs for hubs and gateway devices, enabling consumer electronics companies and OEMs to accelerate the manufacture process and ensure those hubs can communicate with any IoT device. They also work with semiconductor companies like Atmel, Marvell, NXP and Sigma Designs, and offer reference applications. For example, Zonoff provides Z1 Software Suite to chip vendors who can demonstrate their reference smart home solutions to the market with the software.
 
David Friedman, CEO and cofounder of Ayla Networks mentioned that manufacturers realized the IoT is not a technology issue but rather a transformational process for all aspects of their businesses. Zonoff and Ayla Networks established IoT cloud-to-cloud partnership to accelerate the transformation for manufacturers, retailers, service providers, and other players in the marketplace.
 
Interoperable on Common Platform
CentraLite Systems introduced Jilia, a cloud-based IoT framework that allows developers to create IoT connectivity between smart devices using a single API framework. It is challenging and costly to build a cloud-based infrastructure to link a large number of connected devices.
 
Jilia provides an affordable way via a single API. Jilia is brand- , platform- , and protocol-agnostic, so that connected devices and apps developed with Jilia can communicate with all other devices via any existing protocol like ZigBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Thread.
 
To allow products from different brands to sync seamlessly, DSR has developed s portfolio, which acts as a platform to provide cloud and gateway management as well as iOS and Android apps for controlling and monitoring smart devices. The company’s ZBOSS 3.0 supports IEEE 802.15.4 chipsets that operate at either the global 2.4 GHz frequency standard or regional sub 1GHz frequencies.
 
The Icontrol Developer Program provides a common platform for device makers, app developers, and service creators to create interoperable devices and services. Developers will benefit from a streamlined integration process and increased flexibility while maintaining controls over any cloud-based, ZigBee, Wi-Fi or Z-Wave device and Icontrol-powered solutions.