Searching for an Application Layer

Almost exactly a year ago Skip Ashton published a blog that looked both promising and scary. Promising, because we really need a standard that covers such simple things like switches and light bulbs. Scary, because at that time I knew Bluetooth Mesh would still have a long way to go until being officially adopted.

Now a year has passed and nothing happened. ZigBee released their Draft of Revision 6 of the Cluster Library specification. Google started their baby steps with Weave Schemas and the merged OCF started the oneIoTa Data Model. Unfortunately none of these brings any meaningful change to the landscape. After a more serious look at each of these the conclusion is obvious: these efforts are very immature.

Let's take the light bulb example. Both Weave and OCF don't specify a dimming curve. They just say you tell a bulb a non-zero value and it starts emitting light. But actually how much light - nobody knows. ZigBee goes a little further - they actually do have a dimming curve. And even some basic maintenance statistics. But is is a far cry what an IoT world is promising in the areas of device control and device maintenance. Also the basic behaviors like a power-up sequence are missing. Not to mention support for more advanced features like synchronous operation of multiple lights. The bottom line is none of these standards really allows lighting manufacturers take their specification and build successful smart lighting products. They can build wireless products that will not fully satisfy the expectations. Far from being able to say these products would be smart.

2017 will change this. With Bluetooth Mesh we are going far beyond the conventional wisdom and perception of Bluetooth as a technology and standard. People around keep asking why it has been taking us so long. I would not say it's been long (although maybe a bit longer than expected). But the key reason is we want to deliver a solution that goes deep into exploring the needs of the lighting industry and provides a comprehensive answer. We want to deliver technology and a system that provides a complete, full stack answer to manufacturer's dilemmas..

2017 will be the year of smart lighting. Bluetooth will make that happen with the mesh technology.