Too much is proprietary. We need open and free protocols. I don't want to live in a world where I have to buy all my appliances and devices from the same manufacturer.
The issue is that gear supporting open and free protocols is (a) more complicated and/or expensive to install & (b) not visibly better until sometime in the future.
I think the market has proved that it doesn't particularly think about anything past "Does it work right now?" And proprietary-in-a-box formats satisfy that just fine (usually at a cheaper price point).
We'll no doubt eventually get integration, as there's too much opportunity not to. But yes, the near future is probably going to be an ugly period for interoperability. Good time to start selling IoT bridges though...
I suppose I meant IoT gateways on further thought. It's been a while since low-level networking hardware was pushed into my head.
But generally my perception is that the evolution of the network before surplus CPU power made wonderboxes efficient (a "home router" that does everything!) is that network hardware evolved from simpler pieces into more capable but complicated (save on routers by using switches, save on switches by using hubs, save on hubs by using repeaters, etc etc).
So the original intent of my comment was that if we're faced with a network incompatibility issue (e.g. AppleTalk vs TCP/IP), then it'd be good to be in the business of making translation hardware.
I'm a bit under the weather and so my mind isn't really serving up any good examples of what I'm guessing would be the opposite, a standard prepared ahead of testing the market for suitability via the "hard way." Do you know of any? Most of what comes to mind are stillborn messes like XHTML.
It's hard to tell how much of the internet protocol suite could be said to be prepared ahead of time. There was a decades-long practical experimentation process during which several iterations were developed and in use in research settings, and this was coincident in time with many other implementations of networking protocols that powered what was done in the "real world" in commercial settings.
Now I'll grant it's possible that the IP suite was developed as an isolated set of standards divorced from those outside networking practices, but the timeline makes me feel like it's at least possible that there was some lesson-learning incorporated.
Of course, I wasn't involved and I don't know offhand. I'll have to do a bit of reading later for self-edification.
Or these are the inevitable situations that will (hopefully) lead to the standards and software/product being raised so this sort of thing happens less frequently.
At some point IOT products will emerge with well designed features that solve important problems (i.e. electric water heaters that cycle on to absorb intermittent renewable electricity when it is available).
Depends on what the things are. For things which you want to, or have a need to, interface with remotely, I can see a positive. The home automation aspect, HVAC, lights, security, locks, those all have value. If the "thing" accesses the internet to allow you to interface to it, that's pretty good. The opposite, when the thing becomes a browser, that's clearly proving to not be needed or even wanted.
