In the field of the Internet of Things, there are usually some difficult-to-understand abbreviations for protocols, standards and technologies. This article summarizes 23 commonly used terms, hoping to make the language of the Internet of Things clearer.
Cellular Data – Although it is not the most energy-efficient form of transmission, there are a large number of IoT devices deployed based on this, which use the carrier’s wireless data as the transport layer.
LoRa WAN – LoRa is a specialized wireless communications technology designed to implement low-power wide area networks. LoRaWAN technology is similar to (and competes with) Sigfox, and the LoRa Alliance is a consortium of companies.
Sigfox – Sigfox is both a dedicated narrowband low-power technology and the name of a French company. The proprietary nature of the technology is unusual (though not unique) for LPWAN, but Sigfox’s business model is different from most others – it’s intended to serve as an IoT mobile operator for people who want to do IoT Enterprises provide network coverage on demand.
Zigbee – ZigBee is a wireless mesh networking protocol that has good battery life and good security, thanks to its built-in 128-bit encryption. This is partially offset by the maximum data rate and relatively short range, but there are many constrained device applications for which they are well suited. It is also an IEEE 802.15.4 standard, which provides a high degree of interoperability.
Z-wave – Like Zigbee, Z-wave is a low-power, short-range wireless network technology primarily used in applications such as smart home devices. It is standardized by the ITU.
6LoWPAN – Possibly the most annoying acronym, 6LoWPAN is a low-power personal area network standard based on IPv6. This is entirely to appease those who believe that there is no real Internet without network protocols, it is essentially the IPv6 version of Zigbee and Z-wave.
Bluetooth – For the Internet of Things, there are two main forms of Bluetooth wireless communication protocols. One is standard Bluetooth technology, which is widely used in a variety of smart home devices from connected refrigerators to shower heads to door locks; the other is low-power Bluetooth technology, often referred to as “BLE” for short. Large networks of connected devices with limited power consumption are more attractive because battery life is no longer the limiting factor. Both forms were upgraded in the Bluetooth 5.0 version in December 2016. Bluetooth 5.0 expanded the transmission range of Bluetooth devices and improved the data throughput of Bluetooth devices.
NFC (Near Field Communication) – This low-power network has been around for a long time and, unsurprisingly, is well suited for use in IoT applications. Any scenario where you can get close to it and interact with it and don’t need to send or receive a lot of data is a good candidate for NFC.
JSON-LD (Java Object Notation for Linked Data) – A lightweight version of the JSON file format designed to provide a simple way to move machine-readable data around network devices that may have different information formats.
MQTT (MQ Telemetry Transport) – MQTT is a publish/subscribe messaging protocol designed for use in situations where devices communicate with each other using limited computing power, or where network connections are unreliable or delayed. It does a good job, but enforcing strict security controls can be tricky and can weaken the lightweight nature of the protocol.
CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) – This is an Internet protocol designed for constrained devices that have only a small amount of memory space and limited computing power. It was proposed by the CoRE working group of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet Engineering Task Force), and as its name suggests, it works well on small devices such as digital signage and smart lighting.
AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) – AMQP is an open source standard that allows different applications to communicate between any network and any device. AMQP is part of a number of commercial middleware integration products, including Microsoft’s Windows Azure Service Bus, VMware’s RabbitMQ and IBM’s MQlight. It was originally developed by the financial sector to speed up M2M communications, but is now starting to be used in IoT projects.
XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) – As an obvious acronym, it is an open source standard for chat clients that has a bad reputation among some players of online role-playing games. Since then it has become an IETF standard, with a wide range of extensions and implementations, many of which target core IoT functionality such as discovery and configuration.
Thread – Thread is a low-power network protocol that was created and developed by a team led by Google-owned Nest Labs. Like the Nest smart thermostat, it can be said to be the first breakthrough smart home device. Equipped with Thread protocol. An open source version of the specification has been available to developers since the summer of 2016.
Data Distribution Service (DDS) – It is a new generation of distributed real-time communication middleware technical specifications (similar to AMQP) formulated by the Object Management Group (OMG) based on standards such as HLA and CORBA. It can be traced back to 1989 and aims to Create distributed object management standards. DDS uses a system of “topics” – types of information known to the system, such as “boiler temperature” or “conveyor speed” – to provide information to other nodes that have “declared” an interest in a given topic, ideally , which avoids the need for complex network programming.
TR-069 (Technical Report 069069) – This is a Broadband Forum specification document that outlines a protocol called CWMP, which is designed to allow users to remotely configure and manage client devices over IP networks. (Consumer Premises Equipment Wide Area Network Management Protocol, for those keeping score at home.) It dates back to the early part of the last century and was originally designed to help cable network operators remotely manage equipment like set-top boxes.
SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) – SCADA has been around since the mainframe era and was the earliest attempt at computerized control of systems in industrial, manufacturing and heavy transportation applications. Older SCADA networks are often highly insecure and were designed solely for ease of use without security in mind.
SMS (Short Message Service) – Regular old text messaging is a perfectly acceptable communication medium for some IoT devices, especially those spread over a large geographic area and with some latency tolerance ability. Swedish pest control company Anticimex, for example, has a smart trap that updates the company about rodent activity via text message.
Physical Web – It is a concept created by Google that advocates “fast, seamless interaction with the physical world.” It uses a protocol called Eddystone to spread links through Bluetooth Low Energy. The idea is , you can simply walk up to a parking meter and operate it digitally, or get information about the store by scanning it with your phone.
IoTivity – IoTivity is an open source project backed by tech heavyweights like Microsoft, Intel, Qualcomm, LG and Samsung that attempts to create a standard software layer for IoT device connectivity. The project absorbed the competitive standard AllJoyn released by the AllSeen Alliance, and in October 2016, the two systems achieved interoperability.
Weave — Weave is a software layer designed by Google and Nest for the smart home. It’s designed to be flexible and secure even on particularly constrained devices, and it’s based on Google’s existing Android platform. Google has also partially open sourced its code and has now released some of the core components of what it calls “Weave.”
Web Thing Model — This is, not surprisingly, the idea behind the World WideWeb Consortium’s physical IoT framework, which leverages existing web technologies to connect devices rather than relying on custom, non-web protocols. .
HomeKit – HomeKit is Apple’s own brand and a front-end and control platform for smart home devices. The usual problem with it is that it’s only great when you use Apple devices for important parts of the system, but it can be very annoying to use if you don’t use Apple’s own devices like Apple TV or iPads, but it’s also Apple’s fault. Pros, very simple to set up and use.
The development of Internet of Things technology is becoming more and more mature. As the Internet of Things is applied to various scenes of life, it has completely changed our lives. I believe that in the near future, more forward-looking Internet of Things technology will be applied in every corner of our lives. Let us work together , leading the future of artificial intelligence.
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