The Internet of Things and Google's Home Invasion (GOOG)

From The New York Times' Bits blog:
Controlling the Home, Google Style

When Google goes after the home, it goes big. And maybe it goes after control, too.

On Tuesday, Nest, a Google-owned company that makes Internet-connected thermostats and smoke alarms, was one of six companies that announced a consortium to promote the easy online connection of other devices.

How many devices per home? “Two hundred and fifty products per home network,” said Chris Boross, the president of the consortium, known as the Thread Group, and also the head of technical marketing at Nest. “That should provide ample room for growth in the future.”

Considering that now just a handful of home devices, like televisions and video cameras, connect to the Internet, the ceiling of 250 devices certainly seems ample. But the big number of items is not as interesting as how the group seems to be thinking about how the so-called Internet of Things will function.

“Devices will talk to each other in subtle ways,” Mr. Boross said. “If a thermostat thinks no one is home, it might be nice to turn out the lights. If a lock opens, maybe the lights will come on.” 

Sounds futuristic. It also sounds like one of the oldest realities in the networking business: To control the profit margins, control the management layer, the thing that tells other things what to do.

What Thread proposes is a so-called mesh network, in which devices are easily brought online, and communicate with each other as much as they do with the home Wi-Fi router that sends signals about personal and device behavior to and from the Internet. 

This makes Thread different from recently announced efforts by an Intel-led group, and another one featuring technology from Qualcomm, for a standard between routers and devices. Thread is more likely a way to connect everything, then have all those household products reach the Internet via the Intel or Qualcomm communications standard or some other standard....MORE

HT: Architizer
Google Home Invasion: Why It Matters That Smart-Home Gadgets Are Forming Cliques

The Internet of Things is going social (if "things" can socialize with one another) - and Google, as usual, wants to be both class president and prom queen.
 
Imagine if your smart-home gizmos could gab directly to one another, in addition to interfacing with you (the supposed non-robot actor) and your WiFi router. Instead of relying completely on the Internet as a hub for sharing information, your gadgets could have new agency to make some decisions on their own.

"Devices will talk to each other in subtle ways," said Chris Boross, the head of technical marketing at Nest, a Google-owned company that makes hyper-connected thermostats and smoke alarms. "If a thermostat thinks no one is home, it might be nice to turn out the lights. If a lock opens, maybe the lights will come on."...

...MORE