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#News(General) [ via IoTForIndiaGroup ]
Cees Links believes the Internet of Things (IoT) is waiting for the next “Steve Jobs moment.”
Links, winner of the Design News 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award, knows about Steve Jobs moments. While making a presentation on an old-fashioned overhead projector at Apple Inc.’s headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. in 1998, Links learned how quickly Jobs could change the course of history. “He knew what he wanted,” Links told Design News recently.
“As I put foils on the projector, he talked. After two or three foils, he said, ‘Is it clear what I want?’ I said yes, and he stood up and walked out of the room.” Thus was born the era of WiFi’s worldwide success. Jobs launched Links’ wireless radio technology in the Apple iBook a year later under the name Apple Airport, igniting the spread of WiFi throughout the computing landscape.
Links foresees a day in the near future when homes will incorporate hundreds of IoT devices, including motion sensors, door locks, window locks, lighting systems, curtain controls, thermostats, and smart appliances. “We’re living at the start of the Internet of Things world, in which every device in your house will be connected to the Internet,” he said. Links believes homes should be equipped with the same levels of wireless connectivity as cars. Today’s vehicles, he points out, have smart wireless capabilities in engines, phones, windows, tires, and door locks. Yet homes are virtually without wireless, sensor-based systems.
“Why can’t I just push one button, like I do for my car, and know that all the doors are locked?” he asked. “Cars have had remote door-locking for 20 years, and homes are still without central door locks.” One key barrier is the lack of a universally accepted standard wireless technology, he said. He believes an open communications standard, such as Zigbee, is the answer. Right now, however, other standards, such as Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Thread, among others, are competing for the IoT home market. As a result, no single standard has been adopted, he said.
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