Google expects the next big communications hurdle for the Internet of Things will be overcome through orchestration, although they expect it’ll take some kind of data breach before everyone will get their act together.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal, reporting from the Bluetooth World conference this week in Santa Clara, says Google senior developer advocate Wayne Piekarski, defined “orchestration” as multiple connected devices being aware of each other, if not actually able to communicate with each other.
“When you walk in your home, the lights come on and the coffee machine goes on,” Piekarski told the conference. “People don’t want to control a single light bulb, they’re going to work with multiple devices, which means working with multiple manufacturers.”
Decoupling of apps and devices key to IoT orchestration
Right now, users of smart home devices typically buy one product and download the appropriate app to control it. But Google’s Piekarski sees a world where the product and app are handled separately. That way, he says, an app developer can write apps as a third party, and development won’t need to come from the device’s manufacturer.
Google currently works with smart home platforms Brillo and Weave for that reason, he says. And as demand increases for connected appliances and gadgets, expect more of those to be controlled via voice command, like Amazon’s Alexa platform.
While sales of smart home devices are climbing, Piekarski says expects to see security conflicts. As with semi-autonomous cars, there will be a lot of inter-device communications via unsecured networks, which will lead to a security breach of some kind.
Like other data security experts in the IoT field, Piekarski says he fears it will take that kind of breach happening before security becomes a real concern
“We haven’t had anything bad happen yet,” he says. “But something’s going to happen where someone’s house catches on fire.”
