Blog

2021
December
14

Expanding the IoT Tapestry – Thread Group’s 2021 Wrap Up

By Sujata Neidig, VP Marketing for Thread Group / Director of Wireless Connectivity Marketing & Standards for NXP

With year-end looming on the horizon, I always like to pause and reflect on the good work and many milestones we together achieve as the Thread Group. It was another year of virtual meetings, which on one hand was disappointing and more of the same, but on the other challenged us to get creative and discover different ways to collaborate and motivate!


Thread Momentum
A look back over the past 12 months shows a steady pattern of milestones and industry support for our IP-based networking transport layer that’s designed to connect low-power products in homes and buildings. This includes hitting the 100 certified products mark!


Built on Thread certified end products introduced by Belkin, Eve Systems and Nanoleaf, contributed to this growth. Each company offers a range of smart home products which are now enabled by HomeKit with Thread and its availability in the Apple HomePod mini and AppleTV. The market’s response to these new products highlights the benefits that Thread as a network layer provides – fast response time, robust networks, secure operation and a shared mesh that removes the need for dedicated and proprietary hubs. (Peruse our case studies to read more about the innovative companies that are incorporating Thread into their products and portfolios to further grow the world’s ever-expanding collection of IoT products.)


Because Thread is agnostic to the application layer, it gives manufacturers the flexibility to choose one (or multiple) app layers for their intended use case. Thread Group has partnered with other industry IoT standards organizations to deliver complete network solutions.


In the smart home market, there’s been tremendous progress and interest in Matter, a new smart home connectivity standard being developed by the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) and backed by well-known brands including Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung SmartThings, and many other companies. Matter unifies the best of the smart home technologies into a single application framework standard with IP as the backbone. Companies who are both Thread Group and CSA members are developing Matter with Thread implementations – some of which are on display today in the Matter public GitHub with others expected to be spotlighted at the Consumer Electronics Show in early Jan 2022.


In the commercial buildings market, our technology provides improved end-to-end security and integrates seamlessly into the existing IP networks in buildings. One of the partnerships announced this year is with the DALI Alliance (DiiA) – the global industry organization for DALI lighting control, which adopted Thread as the first network technology that will be available with DALI+ with Thread.


Thread’s Growing Ecosystem
Thread Group continues to grow as an organization with members committed to adopting and progressing our flagship protocol. Amazon and Samsung SmartThings both joined the Board of Directors, bringing extraordinary expertise tailored for Smart Home platforms. And, overall membership increased by nearly 20% bringing new perspectives and use cases from a range of markets and regions. We are also very excited and grateful for the opportunity to grow our diverse ecosystem with the addition of new members from the China market, product/component manufacturers, and academia realms. 


Expanded Functionalities on the Horizon
Thread Group members have been hard at work advancing Thread. First of all, the Thread 1.2 certification program is on track to be released in January. Thread 1.2 adds features designed to improve the scalability of Thread networks, by making them more responsive and capable of a higher network density, and to optimize low power performance. The Thread 1.2 White Paper provides more details on these features.


Another key effort has been standardizing the Border Router function, to make it simple for Thread devices to be discovered and communicate with those outside the Thread network. Like Wi-Fi access points, Thread Border Routers provide functionality such as routing traffic and connecting to the cloud, but are unique as they can be built into existing devices from any company – minimizing the need for additional dedicated hardware. This enhancement will be included in a new version of the Thread specification that will be backward compatible with the existing spec, and is planned to launch in Q1 2022. More details to unfold in the new year, including specifics about our certification program.


Wishing You Comfort & Joy
As we put the finishing touches on 2021, I want to express how incredibly grateful I am to steadily work alongside our Thread Group members. The passion, expertise and commitment from these individuals is unwavering, and paired with the collaboration from their organizations and liaison partners we are certainly a force in the IoT industry. Wishing everyone a happy, healthy holiday season as we usher in a promising new year.


UPCOMING EVENTS


2024
April
23-25

Thread Group Members Meeting

Toronto, Canada

Press Releases

2022
July
18

Thread Group Opens Access to Third Evolution of its Wireless Networking Protocol, Enabling Matter, Improving Seamless Connectivity in Smart Homes and Buildings

The Thread Group, an industry alliance enabling IoT convergence, and addressing challenges around secu...

2022
June
13

Thread Group Establishes New Marketing Chapter in China

The Thread Group, an industry alliance addressing IoT convergence, and challenges around security, energy footprint, and architecture at the network layer, today announced the addition of a Regional Marketing Working Group in China to educate...

2021
November
03

Amazon Joins Thread Group Board of Directors

The Thread Group, an industry alliance addressing IoT convergence, and challenges around security, energy footprint, and architecture at the network layer, today announced the addition of Amazon to its Board of Directors. Amazon’s increased backing of Thread Group further demonstrates its commitment to Matter, over both Thread and Wi-Fi, and to supporting a broad range of smart home protocols, which benefits both device makers and their customers.
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Please provide your contact information below and we will keep you informed about our activities.


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This email will be used for all email list subscriptions & all other Thread Group automated communications.

NEWSLETTERS

In The News

2024
January
10

Thread Border Router Fix Should Improve Smart Home Networking

By: Apple Insider

Read More

2024
January
09

Thread Group Unveils Credential Sharing Feature to Propel Smart Home Interoperability

SamMobile

Read More

2024
January
08

Thread Group to Fix Smart Home Protocol's Biggest Problem

Thurrott

Read More

PAST EVENTS

  • CES 2024 January 9-12, 2024  Las Vegas, Nevada  
  • Thread Group Members Meeting Oct 23-26, 2023 Budapest, Hungary 
  • Thread Group Members Meeting April 25-27, 2023 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 
  • CES 2023 January 5-8, 2023 Las Vegas, Nevada 
  • Thread Group Members Meeting OCTOBER 25-17, 2022 Málaga, Spain 
  • Light+Building 2022 OCTOBER 2-6, 2022 Frankfurt, Germany 
  • WEBINAR: Thread 1.3.0  SEPTEMBER 29, 2022 Watch Webinar, View Presentation 
  • Thread Group Members Meeting APRIL 26-28, 2022 Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Thread Group Members Meeting OCTOBER 5-7, 2021 Virtual
  • Thread Group Members Meeting APRIL 20-22, 2021 Virtual
  • Thread Group Members Meeting NOVEMBER 3-5, 2020 Virtual
  • Works With By Silicon Labs SEPTEMBER 9-10, 2020 Virtual Conference Endorsed by Thread Group Read More
  • WEBINAR: How to Keep Your Solar Plant Safe With Google's Full-wireless OpenThread System SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 View Presentation 
  • IoT World US AUGUST 11-13 2020 Virtual Event Endorsed by Thread Group
  • WEBINAR: IoT Convergence With Thread And Project CHIP  APRIL 21, 2020 Listen to Webinar, View Presentation 
  • Thread Technology Day NOVEMBER 22 2019 Taipei, Taiwan View Presentations 
  • Smart Home Summit NOVEMBER 20-21 2019 San Francisco, California View Presentation 
  • Thread Group Members Meeting NOVEMBER 5-7 2019 Zug, Switzerland, Hosted at Siemens 
  • Arm TechCon OCTOBER 8-9 2019 San Jose, California, Thread Endorsed Learn More
  • WEBINAR: New Membership Tier, IPR Considerations And Certification
    MAY 30, 2019 View Webinar
  • Internet of Things World
    MAY 13-16, 2019 Santa Clara, California Thread Endorsed  
  • WEBINAR: Dotdot + Thread: Learn About The Specification And Streamlined Certification Programs
    JANUARY 30, 2019 View Webinar
  • Connections Summit At CES
    JANUARY 8, 2019 Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Wireless Congress
    NOVEMBER 14-15, 2018 Munich, Germany
  • Arm TechCon
    OCTOBER 16-18, 2018 San Jose, California
  • Thread Group Members Meeting
    OCTOBER 16-18, 2018 Munich, Germany
  • Particle Webinar: Going Beyond The Connected Home
    OCTOBER 11, 2018 View Webinar
  • Spectra
    OCTOBER 3, 2018 San Francisco, California
  • Thread Group Members Meeting
    JUNE 26-28, 2018 Austin, Texas
  • Thread Webinar: Developing IoT Devices With Thread
    JUNE 20, 2018 View Webinar
  • Connections
    MAY 22-24, 2018 San Francisco, California
  • Light + Building
    MARCH 18-23, 2018 Frankfurt, Germany
  • Smart Energy Summit
    FEBRUARY 19-21, 2018 Austin, Texas
  • Strategies In Light
    FEBRUARY 13-15, 2018 Long Beach, California
  • Digital Experience! @ CES 2018
    JANUARY 8, 2018 Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Thread Group Members Meeting
    NOVEMBER 15-17, 2017 Lisbon, Portugal
  • Thread + One IoT Stakeholders Summit
    SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 Munich, Germany
  • Thread Group Technology Workshop
    SEPTEMBER 14, 2017 Munich, Germany
  • Thread Group Members Meeting
    JUNE 27-29, 2017 Vancouver, Canada
  • Connected Plus
    JUNE 20-21, 2017 Vancouver, Canada
  • CONNECTIONS 2017
    Speakers Panel: Connected CE Strategies: Building Product Ecosystems
    MAY 23-25, 2017 San Francisco, California
  • IoT World Speakers Panel: Understanding The Complexity And Interoperability Of IoT Platforms
    MAY 16-18, 2017 Santa Clara, California
  • CABA Forum
    APRIL 26-28, 2017 Santa Clara, California
  • Thread Technology Workshop
    MARCH 27, 2017 Mountain View, California
  • Thread Group All Members Meeting
    FEBRUARY 14-16, 2017 Atlanta, Georgia
  • CONNECTIONS Summit At CES
    JANUARY 5, 2016 Las Vegas, Nevada
  • CES 2017
    JANUARY 5-8, 2016 Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Strategies In Light Europe
    NOVEMBER 23-24, 2016 London, UK
  • Internet Of Things World
    NOVEMBER 21-22, 2016 Dublin, Ireland
  • Thread Group All Members Meeting
    NOVEMBER 15-17, 2016 Lisbon, Portugal
  • Wireless Congress
    NOVEMBER 9-10, 2016 Munich, Germany
  • Electronica
    NOVEMBER 8-11, 2016 Munich, Germany
  • CONNECTIONS Europe
    NOVEMBER 2-3, 2016 Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Smart Home Summit
    NOVEMBER 1-2, 2016 Palo Alto, California
  • Thread Group Webinar
    JUNE 28, 2016, 2016 Online
  • Smart Home World
    JUNE 21-22, 2016 London, UK
  • Computex CPX Conference
    MAY 31-JUNE 4, 2016 Taipei, Taiwan
  • Connected Conference
    MAY 25-27, 2016 Paris, France
  • Connections
    MAY 24-26, 2016 San Francisco, California
  • CES Asia
    MAY 11-13, 2016 Shanghai, China
  • Informa IoT World 2016
    MAY 10-12, 2016 Santa Clara, California
  • Thread Group Open House
    MAY 10, 2016 Shanghai, China
  • SMAHome
    APRIL 21-22, 2016 San Francisco, California
  • IoT West 2016
    APRIL 19-21, 2016 Taipei, Taiwan
  • Thread Group All Members Meeting
    MARCH 22-24, 2016 Redwood City, California
  • Wearable Tech Show 2016
    MARCH 15, 2016 London, UK
  • Strategies In Light
    MARCH 1-3, 2016 Santa Clara, California
  • CES
    JANUARY 6-9, 2016 Las Vegas, Nevada
  • Thread Group All Members Meeting
    NOVEMBER 18-19, 2015 Evian Resort, France
  • Cedia
    OCTOBER 16, 2015 Dallas, Texas
  • Internet Of Things World Europe
    OCTOBER 5-7, 2015 Berlin, Germany
  • Thread Open House
    OCTOBER 5, 2015 Berlin, Germany
  • Connected + Conference & Exhibition
    SEPTEMBER 28-29, 2015 Toronto, Canada
  • IoT Security 2015
    SEPTEMBER 22-23, 2015 Boston, Massachusetts
  • Thread Group All Members Meeting
    JULY 23-24, 2015 Austin, Texas
  • O'Reilly Solid, Platforms, Devices And Interoperability In The Smart Home
    JUNE 25, 2015 San Francisco, California
  • Pepcom! Digital Experience
    JUNE 18, 2015 New York City, New York
  • IoT Silicon Valley Meetup
    JUNE 18, 2015 Mountain View, California
  • Connections, Innovative Partnerships: The Connected Home Panel
    MAY 19, 2015 San Francisco, California
  • Internet Of Things World 2015
    MAY 13, 2015 San Francisco, California
  • Mobile World Congress
    MARCH 5, 2015 Barcelona, Spain
  • Stack Tutorials & First All Members Meeting
    FEBRUARY 9-11, 2015 San Jose, California
  • Thread Group Information Event
    SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 Google Campus, Mountain View, California
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