Exploring the Internet of (Every)Thing

Last year I embarked on a journey to explore the Internet of Things or as Cisco calls it “Internet of Everything” (IoE). I like the notion of IoE not because it is coined by my day job employer but because it is about everything. Smartthings, the much talked about IoT startup, talks up the “Physical Graph” because thanks to the Social Networking era the term “Graph” puts you in vogue. [But really graph? do we want to be relegated to a 2D world of graph?]

I have installed, experimented, hacked and studied many IoT offerings, here is the current list:

Philips Hue (and my review here & here)

Smartthings

Twine (my review here)

Node

Wireless Sensor Tags (my review here)

Iris

Belkin WeMo

Nest (Teardown/Review of here and here)

All the above and more are enabling discrete systems to get connected – the first step towards the IoE. As these systems proliferate and standardize in terms of presence and interoperability the need for a fabric that ties all of them together will emerge. I believe Tim O’Reilly describes this notion very well – Software above a Single Device.

I am excited to play a role in tying together the Internet of Everything.

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