Samsung, Nest team up for new smart home project

摘要

Samsung, ARM and Google's Nest Labs are among the companies launching a new, low-powered smart home protocol aiming to solve issues with interoperability and reliability in the sector. The non-profit Thread Group is looking beyond existing 802.15.4 networking technology, which it said has several "critical" issues holding it back. As well as interoperability, it said the technology has an inability to carry communications via IPv6, it has high power requirements and the "hub and spoke" model the technology is built upon means that if one device fails, the entire network crashes. Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, who is advising the group, said: "Existing wireless networking approaches were introduced long before the Internet of Things gained ground. The Thread protocol takes existing technologies and combines the best parts of each to provide a better way to connect products in the home." Thread said its solution is a wireless mesh network running on low-power that can connect more than 250 devices, with access to both the internet and the cloud. The Thread protocol is based on the 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over low power wireless personal area networks) specification.