Internet of Lights Blog

Echelon CEO Looks in His Crystal Ball at the Future of the Internet of Things

Ron Sege, Echelon’s CEO, wrote an article for IoTpedia.com where he talks about the past, present, and future of the Internet of Things. The problem today, as Sege writes, is that: “…we have a billion devices operating in many islands of networks. Air-conditioning systems cannot communicate with lighting systems, even in the same building. Security systems talk yet another language on another island. And, with the advent of the Internet of Things, new devices and new applications for local operating networks are being developed all the time.”

The challenge lies in bringing all of these devices together so they can communicate and capture the benefits of the IoT. This challenge is similar to that of the “Internet of Computers” challenge in the 1980s, when IBM, DEC, Data General, and WANG systems converged with the emerging networks of PCs.

Challenge Echoes What Cisco Faced

“This is the challenge we have taken on in the next chapter at Echelon. In many ways it is the same challenge faced by companies like Cisco in the 1980s and 1990s: Offer a way to bring the installed legacy base together, and onto common new technologies,” Sege says.

Sege writes that Echelon has expanded its sights “...beyond LonWorks to embrace the variety of protocols that make up the legacy installed base of devices, as well as the emerging language of the Internet of Things – IPv6.

“By creating a platform for building device networks that embraces multiple protocols, we can bring together the vast installed base with the quickly emerging Internet of Things, and jumpstart an industry that is full of potential and bound to be the next phase of the Internet: The Internet of Things.”

You may also like:

• Press release on Echelon’s IzoT platform
• IzoT family of chips and the FT 6050 SoC web page
• IzoT platform web page

Video Shows Echelon IzoT Platform in Action

In a recently posted video, Echelon Corp. Product Manager and Director Rich Blomseth demonstrates the multi-protocol, multimedia IzoT™ platform for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), using building automation controls as an example of an IIoT market. The IzoT platform for the IIoT, the next generation of the world’s most successful industrial control platform, encompasses software, chips, and modules.

The demo shows how manufacturers can easily use IzoT tools to create industrial devices that communicate with each other and form autonomous communities of devices as part of the IIoT.

The demo uses readily available third-party industrial products, including:

• The InetSupervisor from Quark Communications Inc., plus controllers for buildings and temperature sensors from Smart Controls, built around Echelon’s IzoT-enabled multiprotocol FT 6050 system on chip (SoC). The FT 6050 enables the devices to act as either LonWorks or BACnet devices, or both at the same time.
• ICONICS’ GENESIS64™ Suite, which provides a centralized control panel to manage the networked devices.

The video also highlights use of the Echelon IzoT router and IzoT commissioning tool to create, monitor, and control building automation devices running different communications protocols.

You may also like:

• Press release on Echleon’s FT6050 System on a Chip for the Industrial IoT
• IzoT Family of Chips and the FT 6050 SoC web page
• IzoT Platform web page