2017
September
27

Thread + Europe: A Market-Ready Wireless IoT Solution Engages a Ready Market

By Sujata Neidig, VP of Marketing, Thread Group

A couple of weeks ago, Thread Group held two events in Munich, Germany to engage with European companies invested in IoT.

• Thread Technology Workshop: A day-long workshop designed to educate IoT product developers about the benefits of Thread and how to design IoT products using Thread as the networking layer.
• Thread + One IoT Stakeholders Summit: A gathering of key decision makers in the IoT ecosystem to focus on practical solutions and standardization efforts that will help leaders in the connected home and commercial building industries implement effective business and product plans.
• Demonstrations area: All attendees had the opportunity to check-out Thread-based demos from a variety of companies such as ARM, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Silicon Labs, and discuss details with the subject matter experts.

With strong attendance and an engaged audience for both events, I left with an appreciation of the efforts being invested from various stakeholders in the IoT space and the willingness of these companies to collaborate in bringing the Internet to devices.

I participated mainly in the Summit and want to share a summary of my key take-aways.

Rolf Riemenschneider, Head of IoT Sector with the European Commission kicked-off the summit and set the stage for the rest of the day. His message was clear that industry fragmentation prevents fast-track innovation and that there's momentum in multiple market segments to create cross-industry platforms. Technology standards and ecosystems are critical to the success of IoT growth in Europe. He stressed that multiple platforms are essential. Key topics that need to be addressed in these platforms include: low-energy footprint, security, open technologies/platforms, interoperability and business models that are service based instead of product based.

Application Layers - Representatives from Fairhair Alliance, KNX, and Zigbee Dotdot presented the key capabilities of their technologies and the value of partnering with Thread Group.

Panel Sessions with Industry Experts - Valuable insight into what key players in the IoT industry are doing and how Thread is a critical aspect of their efforts.

Enterprise IT & Commercial Panel

Moderated by Jos Bruins with representatives from Siemens (Klaus Waechter), Schneider (Barry Coflan) and OSRAM (Arnulf Rupp), there was a consistent theme of why Thread is the foundation of their efforts in IoT. Thread, as an IPv6-based networking solution, provides incredible value to these markets because unlike in the home where there's mainly one person installing and managing the IoT devices, these markets involve multiple participants and stakeholders (system integrators, asset owners, commissioners, etc. from different vendors). Providing end-to-end security from the device to the cloud; enabling a low-energy footprint; having a reliable and self-healing wireless network (wired connectivity doesn't usually provide self-healing); and providing flexibility, ease of installation and future-proofing are key factors in realizing the value of IoT. Thread provides a great foundation to address these factors and all of the panel participants agreed that this industry needs all players to converge on Thread as the low-power, wireless networking layer.

Physical Security Panel

This panel was moderated by Grant Erickson from Nest/Google/Alphabet who is also the Thread Group President and included representation from Nest/Google/Alphabet (Rob Newberry) and Somfy (Jean-Michel Orsat). The discussion focused on the change from traditional security architectures for devices in the home versus one that's based on Thread and Internet Protocol. Replacing a single gateway and cloud-based control architecture with one that is a true mesh network of devices - Rob Newberry from Nest/Google/Alphabet summed it up well with "We didn't want to create the Internet of Protocol Gateways, we wanted to create the Internet of Things." Throughout the discussion, a theme similar to the Enterprise & Commercial Panel repeated itself: Low-power, end-to-end security and ease-of-installation. In the smart home market segment, ease-of-installation includes having a consistent user experience for consumers. The success of smart home products relies on ensuring that devices don't lose their original intended function when connectivity is added.

Consumer IoT + MSOs/Telcos Panel

D-Link (Aaron Armah) and Somfy (Jean-Michel Orsat) participated in this panel to discuss the awareness of IoT amongst consumers and use cases driving IoT in smart homes. The representatives from both D-Link (the DSH-G300 product includes Thread) and Somfy agreed that consumer awareness is increasing in Europe. Telcos have been focused on this for the last 18 months and retailers are promoting more strongly. One positive indicator is that IoT is now becoming a requirement from real estate developers. MSOs, Telcos and ISPs are all trying to find ways to retain their customer base and IoT is seen as a way to address that need. Specifically, creating bundling of technologies/products and new business models is seen as the vehicle to go down this path. As far as use cases, security and surveillance, lighting control and low-energy are all big drivers. The question was asked, "Is there a killer app?" The response...not in the traditional definition of the word "app", instead consumer adoption will depend on ease-of-use and enabling of new benefits. As with the participants of the other panels, these panelists agreed that they see Thread as the networking technology that is the key ingredient in IoT devices they are building.

Overall, it was incredibly encouraging to see that well-known companies like D-Link, Nest, OSRAM, Somfy, Schneider and Siemens not only believe in the value that Thread provides but are also collaborating and cooperating to drive the IoT market forward. There was equally strong participation in the Thread Technology Workshop where attendees were given technical presentations and demos on how to get started with Thread. With the energy I saw at these events, I truly believe that the momentum is there and am excited to be part of the journey with Thread Group.

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