Enabling medical equipment to accurately record the time of diagnostic readings, making it easier to locate connected devices and speeding up the time it takes to develop new apps are just some of the new features to be unveiled as part of the fourth set of oneM2M’s specifications, it has been revealed.
As more organisations and national agencies advocate standardization to advance the development of the Internet of Things (IoT), the global standards initiative oneM2M is working toward the launch of Release 4 of its international standard.
Building on the original modular concept and responding to new priorities in the IoT market, the next set of specifications will include requirements to support fog and edge computing, advance developments in the industrial, railway and vehicular markets and support the use of IoT devices in public warning systems.
“We see each new release as a way of putting more tools in IoT developers’ toolboxes,” says oneM2M’s technical plenary chair Roland Hechwartner. “We listen to our partners and work closely with members around the world to make sure we understand their needs. Then we seek to expand the oneM2M ecosystem with new features that will increase the speed of development of the IoT.”
One of the developments in Release 4 is that the oneM2M “service layer” will now be able to detect when the clock on a connected device, such as a piece of diagnostic medical equipment for example, is not synchronised accurately with other devices. This will prevent inaccurate temperature or blood pressure readings being uploaded by a connected device.
This not only has clear benefits for the patient and the medial professional reviewing the data but can also accelerate the use of IoT devices in the home healthcare sector enabling more care to be delivered outside of a medical facility.
Further advancements will also see the service layer being able to take on tasks that an app would previously have had to do by itself. This frees up the app to work more quickly or to work on other functions and speeds up the time it takes for new apps to be developed. For example, instead of the app itself, the oneM2M service layer could take on the task of automatically unlocking the front door of a home when the homeowner arrives and is identified by a facial recognition camera.
Finding the location of internet-connected devices will also be made easier through Release 4, as the service layer will be able to store location information and share it with any application which makes a location-based query. Perhaps an application wants to know what the temperature is in a certain location. Soon it will be able to make a “geo-query” and the service layer will go and find it for the end-user.
“The IoT continues to grow which means oneM2M must both respond to new developments and stay ahead of emerging trends,” Hechwartner says. “Standards help to accelerate innovation but they have to be flexible enough to respond to user demands. As we continue to develop the next release of specifications, we would welcome involvement from new members and partners from anywhere in the world.”