China Swarms into IoT

Alan Patterson, EETimes-TAIPEI, Dec. 07, 2015 – 

Chinese gadget makers are jumping into Internet of Things (IoT) devices to catch an expected new wave of growth led by connected appliances for homes, some of which can use smartphones as remote controls.

The daunting number of wireless technologies competing for a share of the IoT business threatens to stifle growth of the overall market. There?s an alphabet soup of industry organizations and standards, including the Bluetooth SIG, the ZigBee Alliance, the ANT+ Alliance, EnOcean, the IP500 Alliance, KNX RF, the ULE Alliance, Z-Wave and the 6LoWPAN group.

The Chinese government has aimed to unify some of the disparity with a proposed reference architecture for IoT known as ISO/IEC 30141. China will be counting on its domestic industry, which makes about 2.5 billion home appliances annually, to implement local standards.

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