Headworx

To all companies betting on WiFi for their IoT product and services strategy: I have a warning for you. Reconsider your radio. WiFi ain't gonna fly for you. Last week I attended the AllSeen Alliance Summit in Seattle. I'm pretty new to AllJoyn and still on a steep learning curve. The framework itself is very interesting and promising but it's heavy reliance on WiFi worries me a lot. There are many myths about WiFi and many known issues that nobody wants to talk about. E.g. I'm rearing from a keynote speaker AllJoyn is peer to peer and does not require a hub. Huh? So suddenly WiFi does not require an access point and devices will talk to each other? C'mon... don't lie! Then I attend a number of sessions diving deep into products and solutions. And no single demo works. Because "the environment in the hotel is too noisy". And instead of live demos we have playback slides. Aha. So do we expect the conditions to improve? Will we have less connect...

The Time got ecstatic on the recent Tesla software update. Yes. Cars, like phones, are software products now. I remember back in 2008 I learned BMW's budget for a new car platform was 60% software and 40% hardware. Now the hardware must be even less. At least for the leaders who decided to push the envelope and cross the chasm between hardware and software products. Light bulbs today are software products too. Back in the old days there were just a handful of bulb makers. It was the heavy industry. Tungsten, glass and vacuum. The factories had to be big and expensive. Today's bulb hardware is like car's hardware: a couple of components: LEDs, drivers, optics, housing. The difference between an ordinary bulb and an extraordinary bulb is in software. It is the software that defines how a bulb can be dimmed. It is the software that determines what other bulbs or switches or sensors or phones it can connect to. It is the software that defines if a bulb can join a group ...

Most WiFi "things" have the following setup procedure: They start in an access point mode. You connect to the temporary access point and give it the network credentials to your home WiFi. The device reboots and uses the credentials to connect to the WiFi  network. The problem with that is in #2 you actually have no proof who you are giving the WiFi password to. It could be your bulb but it could be your neighbor or my rogue access point named "LIFX_WHITE_800". So you will give me your WiFi password, thinking you are giving it to the light bulb. There is no authentication. You have no way to make sure there is no man in the middle trying to steal your credentials. And once this happens you will want to change the WiFi password. And the consequence will be to re-provision the 50 or so orphaned WiFi devices. The WiFi security model does not work for IoT . This is serious.

While IoT has been the buzz of the last couple of years, we are yet to see mass market adoption of it in many product categories. Smart Homes being just one of many. At Silvair we've started working on smart homes many years ago and experienced the same kind of friction. Friction at end users struggling with complexity of setup and configuration. Friction at manufacturers, not sure which technology to bet on. Friction at distribution channels lacking clear brand leadership. We've identified the way to remove that friction. It was precisely in Q3'2013 when Google announced Android 4.3 would support Bluetooth Smart. It became clear at that time Bluetooth Smart was a perfect base to remove the IoT friction. But it was just the base. Albeit the best, one could imagine, with huge brand awareness and revolutionary fundamentals. We rolled our sleeves up and started working on technology known today as Silvair Mesh. A completely new networking software stack put on top of ex...