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Thread is a mesh network to connect products around the home
- paletoy 12y agoIn my eyes, the ideal rotocol would be one that fits, but doesn't need any router at all. While not excatly that, lora , a long range(kilometers) low power/cost protocol, seems like the right choice. Just find the right model for personal deployment some open routers(similar to wifi) and let nodes seek those open nodes , and we all win. But i'm probably missing something here, since i haven't heard of anybody doing this. I wonder what ?
- bravo22 12y agoLora is like 10 bits per second... really slow.
- paletoy 12y agoSo do you see some IOT tech that could spread without needing a router in every home ?
- bravo22 12y agoBLE + WiFi in some nodes; BLE in all the really low power ones that need to give you data -- like motion sensor.
- JetSpiegel 12y agoI only need a bit to turn a light on, so we may be onto something here.
- outside1234 12y agoYou forgot about security.
- Sanddancer 12y agoDimmers need a few bits, probably 8+ for decent control. Waiting a few seconds for a light to dim would be rather annoying. Doing RGB effects would be even slower. Ovens need at least 10 for a decent temperature range. Authenticating a door lock would require at least 128 bits one way, and another 128 the other; 30 seconds would be way too long for that purpose. Plus, you need to take into account addressing, a protocol for the type of message, and other aspects in order to route commands to the proper node. 10 bits per second just isn't going to cut it.
- JetSpiegel 12y agoIf I'm 50cm from the door, there no need to use this protocol. This for the times you're not at home, but somewhat close. If I want to turn the lights off and I'm at home, I just flick a switch.
- duncan_bayne 12y agoFrom a brief read of their site, they intend the protocol to be available to paying members only under FRAND terms. Here's hoping it dies off quickly.
- TeMPOraL 12y agohttp://www.threadgroup.org/portals/0/documents/thread_introduction_website_7-15-14.pdf http://www.threadgroup.org/portals/0/documents/thread_introd... Page 2 of the presentation says it's supposed to be an open protocol.
- duncan_bayne 12y agoFrom http://www.threadgroup.org/About.aspx http://www.threadgroup.org/About.aspx ... "What will be the licensing and royalty terms of membership? The Thread technology will be licensed to members under RAND-RF terms."
- higherpurpose 12y agoI have a feeling Samsung pushed for that.
- DannyBee 12y agoRead again: "The Thread technology will be licensed to members under RAND-RF terms. " RAND-RF = royalty free
- forgottenpass 12y agoI wonder what the catch is. Requiring membership to use a zero-cost technology is a way of enforcing constraints on implementers. If I were to bet, I'd say it's a way of guaranteeing they retain external access to in-home data. Just market it as ensuring interoperability and the apologists will be coming out of the woodwork.
- IanCal 12y ago> Requiring membership to use a zero-cost technology is a way of enforcing constraints on implementers. I assume it's so you don't have thousands of non-compliant devices being sold with the same name on them. Avoids the "Oh no, that's spec+- not spec-+, they're not compatible unless you've got a bridge with a chipset with part ID starting with 71204, 71205xxx are not compatible".
- mrbill 12y agoSo, this is what, ZigBee+? Any plans on integration or gateways for interoperation with existing ZWave/Zigbee networks?
- atonse 12y agoToday I learned there's a fan company called "Big Ass Fans" - and they're a partner in this!
- Zuph 12y agoThey've recently diversified into lighting, with "Big Ass Lights." The companies are organized under "Big Ass Solutions" http://www.bigasssolutions.com/ http://www.bigasssolutions.com/
- unchocked 12y agoThey're damn fine fans too, proper airfoils instead of mere tilted planes. Not to mention big-ass.
- fixedd 12y agoYou should really see some of the fans they make, they earn their name: http://i.imgur.com/GxuVHDx.jpg http://i.imgur.com/GxuVHDx.jpg
- chimeracoder 12y agoTime Warner has been creeping into home automation - I've been getting ads for their home automation service for "only" $40/month with my monthly bills for the last few months. If TWC has their way I imagine this will go about as well as Google Wallet did, which was killed because all the mobile carriers wanted to promote their own version (formerly Isis), and had the power to do so (since they could prevent Google Wallet from working on their devices.
- maxerickson 12y agoAT&T has also been advertising home automation and security (on national television). I think they don't care too much about the technology, they want to market the monitoring and connection services, which I guess means they will still choose whatever favors collecting those monthly fees.
- matthewmacleod 12y agoI am super-glad this is finally happening; I was getting close to starting it myself, given the rubbish options which are currently available for building a proper end-to-end home automation system. However, I'm concerned about the openness of it. I'm like 99% certain that the only realistic way to get a system like this to work is a 100% open, unlicensed, freely-implementable protocol with absolutely no restrictions. It doesn't currently sound like that will be the case, which is going to be a problem. Perhaps I'll be working on this after all…
- bravo22 12y agoIt looks like a transport, which has been around for a long time. 6LowPan has certainly been. From what I read, it doesn't give you things like send command X to dim lights. Zigbee HA already defines those but everyone violates them in some way.
- johnvschmitt 12y agoThey didn't launch any protocol. They launched a site to get (paying) members to come up with a protocol. Big difference. I'm not too hopeful yet. Maybe it's just their ".aspx" website that has a proprietary flavor to it, when we terribly need an open standard here. We do need an open standard, so each inventor just needs to implement their idea, & not spend 90% of their time building the whole supporting architecture, and trying to train the customers in the differences in the setup. The wearables/IoT ecosystem will continue to flounder until the equivalent of W3C arises.
- atonse 12y agoErr, saying that a site has a proprietary flavor just because it's hosted on Windows, is like saying this open standard is proprietary since the documentation was authored in MS Word.
- jnbiche 12y ago>is like saying this open standard is proprietary since the documentation was authored in MS Word. And yes, that gives off the same vibe. It's a vibe that says, "we're not really into open source". I say that in spite of Microsoft's recent -- and welcome -- forays into open source. Their technology is still used primarily among people and organizations who are not very welcoming to open source technology.
- duncan_bayne 12y agoIndeed, it's like a recruiter asking me to email them my resume in Word format ... for a role working with an almost entirely Free Software stack. Clueless on so many levels, and a great big warning sign.
- atonse 12y agoI just can't agree with this, I'm afraid. Even though I'm a web developer who _loves_ open source on the server side and has pushed for as many open source technologies as possible in my daily work as a web developer, I much prefer the experience of MS's office suite to many of the open source alternatives. And that doesn't undermine any of the work I do as a programmer. My job is to pick the superior option and weigh pros and cons for a given set of circumstances, whether it's open source or closed source. I'm happy being a user and advocate of open source technologies without having to be an absolutist who won't use anything else.
- agentultra 12y agoAnd then there were N+1 competing protocols... Bureaucracies and committees are good at developing protocol specifications. Instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall maybe those of us interested in pervasive network computing should get an ANSI committee (or IETF-like task force) together to develop the de-facto standard language. I don't want to have to build out an API in front of my cluster that speaks every possible permutation of language from every device and sensor. As a hardware vendor I wouldn't want to lock myself out of an ecosystem because my device only speaks a particular language that only a portion of the cloud speaks (or may become obsolete in a few years). It's nice that this stuff is happening... but a Cambrian explosion of protocols isn't going to make the IoT very robust, IMHO.
- bravo22 12y agoI prefer IETF CoAp standard. Look it up. Much better I think.
- jchrisa 12y agoCoAP is very compelling, here is the spec: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7252 http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7252 Cool that it maps to HTTP / REST so you can proxy it to the web. All the tricks it gets from UDP + TURN ICE STUN are p2p friendly.
- agentultra 12y agoThanks, I will definitely look into this.
- jamesbritt 12y agoSame here. Feels like a mix of OSC (Open Sound Control) and HTTP. As with OSC it runs over UDP, which is handy for low-pwoer devices and/or constrained bandwidth. However, also as with OSC, you can use TCP for CoAP if need be.
- middleca 12y ago+1 for CoAP - We use it!
- bravo22 12y agoGoogle is doing this so they can give you another reason to buy Nest -- it now acts as a bridge! Yale is doing this because they have locks that already have Zigbee. ARM is doing this to sell chips. They have their fingers in a million different protocols. I don't blame them. Funny enough, there are very few things in home automation that actually need battery. Everything from light switches to light bulbs to smoke alarms and security systems are wired. The better way would be to use BLE which has the same benefits of 802.15.4 stack. BLE 4.1 allows you to do mesh routing, like Zigbee. The biggest boon is that you can talk to the nodes directly with your phone.
- wlesieutre 12y agoLight switches don't need to be wired either, we've just been doing them that way because it's the obvious thing when you're just turning a 120v circuit on and off. When your lightbulbs become smart devices, they no longer want to be on an on/off circuit. In fact, it doesn't even matter if a group of them is on the same circuit or not. You just need a switch to talk to them wirelessly over Thread, ZigBee, Enocean, or similar. At that point, you don't have to run the circuits to your light switches either. Enocean's switches are all powered by kinetic energy, but if you don't mind replacing all of your batteries every few years, that can work too.
- ddeck 12y ago>Light switches don't need to be wired either Indeed, and sometimes can't be. There are a couple of locations in my home where there's insufficient depth to mount a wired switch and I instead have MK astral (z-wave) low-profile battery powered switches.
- alexchamberlain 12y agoFrom a safety perspective, it's probably better that they are wired, though I'd prefer them to be wired to Ethernet and powered by PoE, rather than with 120/240V.
- atwebb 12y ago
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- xexers 12y agoBut the software industry already uses the word "Thread" to describe something else. This will get confusing fast.
- sangnoir 12y agoThe knitting industry also uses the word "Thread" to describe some other thing. This is going to be a nightmare, I tell you.
- alexchamberlain 12y agoThis is fantastic; it is just an IP based home automation protocol, with backing from some of the biggest players in the industry.
- duncan_bayne 12y ago... and which can be used only by group members, under RAND-RF terms. It is not an open protocol.
- atarkmani 12y agointeresting development. just think about the impact of automation on the hotel industry. Samsung has created a smart room control solution for BLOC boutique hotels in the UK. i wonder if this protocol embedded into the fabric of their automation solution
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- chubot 12y agoHow likely is it that they will create an open source reference implementation (e.g. C code anybody can use)?
- SEJeff 12y agoThis is basically ontop of zigbee. Perhaps zigbee will finally compete with the likes of stuff like insteon which is cheap and for the most part "just works TM".
- pocketstar 12y agoLooks cool! Though someone should have edited their website "Extensive support for sleepy nodes operating for years using even on a single AA battery" - http://www.threadgroup.org/Technology.aspx http://www.threadgroup.org/Technology.aspx Why is there no easy way to report errors on websites these days?
- freyr 12y agoThe Internet of Things hype hasn't hit HN hard yet, but it seems to be ramping up. Is anybody else skeptical? The strongest push for IoT seems to be from the wireless hardware manufacturers (Cisco, Qualcomm, etc.) and of course, they have the most to benefit from putting a wireless chip in everything. It's a wonderful solution to their problem of "How do we sell more chips?" Now Google and Apple are hopping on board. They also have something to gain; Apple sells more hardware, Google collects more information. But from a consumer's perspective, it seems like a solution in search of problem, and I haven't yet seen a single truly compelling use case that will impact a large segment of the population (turning heating/AC or lights on and off automatically is cool, but not that cool for most people when initial cost is factored in). Can somebody illuminate this for me?
- alttab 12y agoRight now its all buzzwords and vaporware. We are in 2004 talking about the "cloud." However, its coming, much like the cloud has.
- freyr 12y agoThere's a critical difference. Although the cloud and the IoT both began with buzzwords and vaporware, the cloud had clear and compelling potential benefits for customers from the start. For every "cloud," there are many overhyped technologies that went nowhere, despite industry's best efforts to thrust them upon us.
- Someone1234 12y agoA lot of people here are sceptical but I keep looking for products on Amazon I just assume would already exist but don't. Three examples: I was recently looking for a door chime ("door bell") and since I have WiFi already all over the house I wanted something that could piggy-back off of that to increase range but also maybe send the notification to my phone or similar. Doesn't exist. Only ye-olde style RF doorbells no different than what they sold 50 years ago. I wanted a motion sensor that wasn't part of a security system, just a single stand alone motion detector which could send a text message ONLY during set hours (e.g. 11 pm to 6 am) when motion was detected. But nope, also doesn't exist (in fact there is a serious lack of variety in motion detectors, the closest I found was a Honeywell one which set off a doorbell when motion was detected, but cannot be shut off based on time of day). I want to know when the clothing dryer is done. I often don't hear it. I have WiFi, but yet I cannot receive an update digitally yet. Why? I cannot speak to everyone but for me personally I WANT this stuff. I'd happily buy this stuff. It doesn't exist. Where is it? Make it and I'll buy it.
- eximius 12y agoWhy is there no information for individual developers?
- ausjke 12y agoas a developer who dealt with zigbee, it sucks. z-wave is great, but not open enough and not IP-friendly. 6lowpan is a logical choice for IT companies, which is what Thread about here. I hope it becomes more popular over time.