IoT took center stage at the two-day Samsung Developer Conference, which kicked off on April 27 at Moscone Center in San Fransisco.
Entertainment services and virtual reality are Samsung’s another focus area at the conference.
The Korean company said around 4,000 of developers from around the world joined at the Moscone Center and thousands via the SDC Live stream.
This year’s theme of SDC is ‘connecting the future everywhere you look.’
Dongjin Koh, president of Mobile Communications Business at Samsung Electronics explains theme as: “everywhere you go, there will be opportunities to bring devices and people together. It also means there will be opportunities for you to connect with the future, right now.”
IoT Product highlights at SDC
At the event, Samsung introduced open APIs and tools for the Samsung ARTIK Platform, an integrated IoT platform.
Using these APIs and tools, Samsung said, companies can securely collect, store, and act on any data from any connected device or cloud service.
These APIs and tools are designed to bring new IoT solutions and services to market and help businesses to tap into new revenue streams and grow their business.
Further, Samsung announced the ARTIK Cloud, an open data exchange platform designed to connect devices and applications.
Samsung believes the ARTIK Cloud, along with the previously announced Samsung ARTIK family of integrated IoT modules, to enable development of new enterprise, industrial, and consumer applications.
According to Samsung, the ARTIK Cloud makes it easy to connect all devices – those powered by ARTIK modules and by other modules.
Further, ARTIK Cloud’s open APIs and tools help developers and solution providers to build new IoT apps and services.
The Samsung ARTIK Cloud is scalable, while keeping latency low to enable fast interactions.
Samsung- Legrand Partnership
At the conference, Samsung and Legrand showcased the world’s first Thread-enabled IoT light switch powered by the Samsung ARTIK platform.
For Legrand, the Samsung ARTIK IoT platform provided support for the Thread standard, which is the foundation for the connected home.
Thread is built on open standards and with IPv6/6LoWPAN protocols. It securely connects hundreds of devices to each other and to the cloud using real internet protocols over a low-power wireless mesh network.
Brian DiBella, president Electrical Wiring Systems, Legrand, North America said, “In combination with the SAMSUNG ARTIK Cloud, our smart light switches interoperate with other smart-home products and effectively serve as the central nervous system of the home to make life simpler, more convenient and more secure for our customers.”
ABI Research IoT outlook
Complementing the IoT developments at SDC, ABI Research released an encouraging IoT outlook.
The think-tank says IoT is likely to account for 28 percent of wireless connectivity IC market by 2021, driven by fast-growing smart home, wearables, and beacons.
According to the research agency, the market’s trend toward multi-protocol connectivity IC adoption will ease development time, boost scale, and reduce complexity and cost for manufacturers across these different sectors in the years ahead.
“2015 witnessed a growing trend toward the development of multiprotocol connectivity SoCs for the IoT, some of which support both Bluetooth Smart and 802.15.4,” says Andrew Zignani, Industry Analyst at ABI Research.
“Devices that incorporate multiprotocol chipsets will be more futureproof. While a product might utilize Bluetooth in the short term, a device manufacturer may want to switch to Thread in the future or have the ability to talk to multiple connectivity protocols once deployed.”
Moving forward, ABI Research foresees the use of a combination of Bluetooth or ZigBee or Thread technologies in a single device.
ABI Research also expects growing presence of smart home hubs that utilize multiple connectivity solutions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Smart, Z-Wave and 802.15.4 (ZigBee/Thread).
The agency stated that these solutions will have a significant role to play in the development and consolidation of wireless connectivity solutions for the smart home.
ABI Research forecasts that Bluetooth smart home devices will grow 75 percent between 2016 and 2021.
At the same time, 802.15.4-based ZigBee and Thread will lead with 34 percent volume share of the home automation and 29 percent of the smart lighting markets.
Arya MM
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