A group of consumer electronics and technology companies have banded together to form an alliance that aims to fulfill the promise of the ‘Internet Of Things’ and bring connectivity to devices of all types, across homes, healthcare, automotive, education and beyond.
The AllSeen Alliance, a new collaborative project hosted by The Linux Foundation, includes a range of top electronics makers — such as Haier, LG Electronics, Panasonic and Sharp — and technical/chipset companies like Qualcomm, Silicon Image and TP-LINK; numerous others are involved as community members.
The project is based on AllJoyn, an open-source project first developed by Qualcomm that allows all manner of devices, apps and services to communicate across on and offline channels, such as WiFi, power-line or ethernet. AllJoyn doesn’t require Internet access and is designed to work across different operating systems and platforms.
“The AllSeen Alliance represents an unprecedented opportunity to advance the Internet of Everything for both home and industry. We are very happy to host and help guide this work,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation.
See: The Internet of Things: In action
The founding members of the AllSeen Alliance will give software and engineering resources to help create a framework that could enable all kinds of devices to link up — imagine your LG fridge communicating with your Sharp TV, Sony smartphone, Toyota car or other devices and products in the future.
Among the many founding companies which provided comment on the alliance and its efforts, Rob Chandhok, president of Qualcomm Connected Experiences, said:
Today’s announcement represents the logical next step for broad adoption of a common software and services framework that will foster a dynamic ecosystem, helping to unlock the promise of the Internet of Everything.
The direct peer interactions that the AllJoyn-based framework enables will greatly enrich user experiences. We envision that users will be able to add the benefits of ‘the Internet of Things near me’ to the cloud-based services they already enjoy.
Related: How the Enterprise of Things is turning the CIO into the Chief Integration Officer
Image via Thinkstock
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