Reliability: the #1 IoT challenge
IoT is easy and flashy to demonstrate. But in the long run it is extremely difficult to reliably deliver on promise. Things and networks are breaking down on regular basis. Part of the reason is in the IoT each sensor / actuator node is optimized for cost (because ultimately there are millions or even billions of them). IoT is not like the big iron Internet backbone, where components are top grade and everything is redundant. Many IoT systems are exposed (by design) to harsh and changing environment.
Take a parking sensor, embedded in tarmac. Cars are running over it. In Summer the Sun boils it, in Winter it is covered with snow and ice. It transmits data over already crowded, full of interference, radio band.
The nodes in IoT networks are failing relatively often. Or statistically the failures are experienced more often just because there is a large number of deployed nodes. Failing nodes is one of the fundamental design assumptions for any IoT system, be it a city - wide parking sensor network or a home automation system. The batteries fail. The transmission is blocked or jammed. The electronics fail generating false signals.
This mess has to be taken care of. The managing infrastructure (like a smart home controller) has to monitor, act and react to any failures. Ultimately delivering appropriate notifications to people who manage the system (be it owners or system installers). The worst (but commonly used) approach is optimistic. Meaning "it works (sometimes)". The "it works (sometimes)" syndrome is the most deadly and annoying. A light that comes up but sometimes does not. A wake-up sequence that won't wake you up from time to time. Even worse is when there are no means of turning back the time to examine what exactly went wrong.
The 30 months we've spent on investing in building and polishing our http://wiho.me/ platform (it is now officially live in Poland as F&Home Radio) has been mostly spent of making sure the system "works". Always. The defensive approach. The central controller is the most stable piece of software I have ever seen. It fully supervises the controlled network of sensors and actuators. It always knows if an actuator has or has not performed the requested action (and if not, what was the reason - overloaded output, overheated electronics, no radio range, etc.). It knows if sensors reporting to it are healthy or have some problems (radio range, battery life). It can command emergency actions (if the main light cannot be turned on then power secondary lights).
Making the wireless / digital as reliable as an analog wired system has been a challenge. Complexity is the reason, after all we usually replace every foot of copper cable with thousands of transistors and lines of computer code (but ultimately transistors made of sand and code cost less than copper...). I believe we've won the challenge by making reliability our #1 design goal. I believe this is our weapon against the competition and we will continue to built upon it.
IoT is the ever-growing network of physical objects that feature Internet connectivity. Have a deep look into it to know what the Internet of Things actually is, how it works and what the risks are as well as its benefits.
ReplyDelete