> There simply are not protocols around that deal with buying a device from a store, taking it home and magically making it work, There are currently a few su

> There simply are not protocols around that deal with buying a device from a store, taking it home and magically making it work, There are currently a few such protocols in the works(some still in development, some are starting deployment),highly optimized for the IOT: sigfox, semtech's lora, and the weightless standard. In general they are low bandwidth, long range protocols(from 1.5 kilometer in dense urban environment to tens of kilometers with direct line of site), mostly use unlicensed bands, use very little power(end user devices might last 5 years on a single battery), enable good latency, and are pretty cheap(around 1 euro per year, maybe less.). > self describing protocols It's hard to see that happening on the device side, but having the self-description added on the cloud/router would work.