Ah, the Internet of Things a way to get your refrigerator to remind you when you’re out of milk, and also a way for the government to surveil literally every aspect of your life. As CivSource has reported, Cisco places the market for the Internet of Things at around $14 trillion. It’s no wonder then that companies are not only scrambling to offer connected devices, but also platforms for those devices and their makers to link up. Connect2.me is one such platform, backed by Plasma Computing Group an OEM provider.
So far, 100+ companies have listed their IoT products and solutions on the Connect2.me marketplace, including companies like Dropbox, Box, Evernote, Plaintronics, Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook. The marketplace is free and provides a listing of IoT API’s and SDK’s.
“This is only the first phase of our launch,” Connect2.me CEO, Yasser Khan, explains in an interview with CivSource. “We will be adding Connect2.me to become largest free IoT educational ecosystem for the developer community” – he said, noting that the influx of new devices and their connectivity needs calls for a centralized location for developers to find valuable APIs to integrate into their projects and product offerings.
Essentially, the platform is broken into two components – vendors can list their devices and APIs and developers can register to start browsing for what they need to build out their own projects. FitBit can offer up its system on the marketplace for developers to build new add-ons and so on. So far, a majority of the companies listed on the site are geared toward the consumer marketplace but Khan notes that companies that also serve the public sector are listing on Connect2.me.
“There are obvious use cases here for monitoring utilities, or system maintenance in the public sector, a lot of that is being handled with sensors or other middleware right now, but it’s still early days. Developers will continue to work through finding new options. With the marketplace, sourcing those points of collaboration may be easier,” Khan adds.
The Internet of Things is still in early stages, but Connect2.me is hoping to build on prime mover status and be the go-to repository for all things IoT. Other operational service providers are also getting into the mix including those researching battery-free WiFi connections to keep all of these devices talking to each other without eating up too much energy. In some senses the operational backbone of the IoT will be as important as building out all these chatty devices and sensor networks. Can we tune in without turning off? We’ll see.