M2M devices have been around very a very long time. They've been used successfully in building management and industrial process control for many years.
But with the advent of IoT devices and control systems, the shortcomings of traditional M2M systems are readily apparent. One of the main shortcomings of conventional M2M systems is that they were designed to solve a problem for one purpose. Hence, M2M systems are industry and application specific devices operating as standalone vertical siloes.
Moving away from M2M and into IoT systems is a fundamental control engineering change. IoT systems are open, multi-purpose, participatory and innovative. Sure, they use IP, but more than that, IoT systems employ multiple forms of sensing and actuation and provide a platform to not only control a machine or a process for automation purposes, but also to create knowledge and insights to reap benefits horizontally across a business enterprise or organization. The table below delineates the main differences between M2M and IoT systems.
So, what are you doing to transition from conventional M2M solutions to IoT systems?
What challenges you are experiencing on the job regarding the M2M-to-IoT transition? What were the deciding factors to transition? Conversely, what factors have prevented you from making the jump to IoT? Please share your stories with the element14 community.
A Comparison of the Main Characteristics of M2M and IoT
Aspect | M2M | IoT |
Applications and Services | Point problem driven | Innovation driven |
Single application, single device | Multiple applications, multiple devices | |
Communication and device centric | Information and service centric | |
Asset management driven | Data and information driven | |
Business | Closed business operations | Open market place |
Business object driven | Participatory community driven | |
B2B | B2B, B2C | |
Established value chains | Emerging Ecosystems | |
In-house deployment | Cloud deployment | |
Technology | Vertical system solution approach | Horizontal enable approach |
Specialized device solutions | Generic commodity devices | |
De facto and proprietary | Standards and open source | |
Specific closed data formats and service descriptions | Open software development | |
SOA enterprise integration | Open APIs and web development |
Source: "From Machine-to-Machine to the Internet of Things"