Internet of Things
A brief discussion of Internet of Things (IoT) protocols: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/smart-home-wireless-network-primer,news-21085.html
One of the more popular topics in gadgetry as of late has been the “Internet of Things” – an in-home network of appliances and devices, from phones to light switches. Personally, only my major home electronics have any sort of networking built in, and I feel it’s safe to say many people are the same, but nonetheless the movement has been gaining traction. However, having done a bit of home electronics with a RaspberryPi microcontroller, I do know a thing or two about the different technologies used to support these networks. I found that the provided article was a good overview of the major players in IoT connectivity – a group that includes the protocols Zigbee, Thread, Z-Wave, and WeMo – and the approaches they take to establishing a robust network that enables efficient communication between devices.
Although less popular, WeMo is a good starting place for discussing these technologies as it’s the only one that uses a centralized “star” network setup, as opposed to a “mesh” network. This works a bit like your home router – all your devices connect through that to your other devices – and it relies on the assumption that you’ll always have a central hub available to connect to. As a result, it doesn’t differ much from the setup of a local IP network. But what I find interesting about IoT technology is that most of the other protocols (Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Thread) all use a “mesh” style network. Unlike a star network, a mesh network has no central hub – rather, any attempts to connect to another device may be routed through any number of different paths.
These networks are, fundamentally, based on the principles of network design and the degrees of separation we discussed in class. For communication I would say there’s three main goals – minimizing downtime, decreasing latency, and increasing throughput – the first two of which can be solved by designing a network of devices in the right way. By having a dense graph of devices, you can ensure there’s always a path to your target, although it may increase network noise and decrease throughput. It can also ensure that any path to your target is fairly short. However, having a fully-connected network causes a lot of unnecessary information being sent, and may not always be the best option. As a result, the designers of these protocols need to create simple rules (easily performed by basic devices) that, on an individual level, create a fairly optimal network.
Given that much of the modern internet is connected in a tree-like fashion, I find the direction that’s being taken with the IoT is cool, because it caters to low-powered communication for a network that’s designed to change constantly. As it (likely) grows in the next few years, it’ll be cool to see what else happens with these protocols.