IoT news of the week for Dec. 20, 2019

The Z-Wave Alliance is opening up: In the wake of this week’s news that the three smart home giants are working under the Zigbee Alliance to create the CHIP standard, other organizations are making their own big moves. On Thursday, the Z-Wave Alliance and Silicon Labs, the chip company that owns the Z-Wave IP, said they would open up the radio tech as an open standard. A spokesman said the news was planned for CES after a vote earlier this month, but they moved the timing up in response to the CHIP announcement. By the second half of next year, chipmakers and software companies will be able to contribute software and make hardware based on the Z-Wave standard. The Z-Wave Alliance will expand to a standards development organization for the Z-Wave spec and will continue to manage the Z-Wave certification program. (Z-Wave Alliance)

MQTT got an update this year that has some nice features: The latest iterations of the MQTT protocol came out in March, but I just ran across this article detailing the updated features. Several of those features will improve MQTT for widescale and enterprise IoT use cases. MQTT is a messaging protocol popular with IoT developers. However, just because something is popular doesn’t mean it can’t improve. As more developers tried to shoehorn the tech into more use cases, weaknesses were showing. This update addresses some of them, including the challenge of data coming in out of order on a time-sensitive process. (IoTforAll)

A tour of IKEA’s Home Smart ambitions: The Verge went to Almhut, Sweden (I’ve been there on a similar pilgrimage) and took a camera crew to share a deep dive into IKEA’s plans for the smart home—or as IKEA calls it, Home Smart. Its reporters interviewed Home Smart CEO Bjorn Block about IKEA’s vision (which is to embed intelligence into the home, not force people to buy a bunch of weird gadgets) and share with us the well-lit plywood boards showcasing all of the up-and-coming IKEA products. I love the Swedish company’s emphasis on the physical experience even as more things are controlled digitally, and thought the historical overview and lookahead to IKEA’s future in the smart home was well done. (The Verge)

Satellite partnership lets Sigfox take to the sea: Sigfox, the company that builds proprietary Low-Power Wide-Area Networks, has signed a deal with boating company Plastimo to put Sigfox radios on its rescue gear. Plastimo apparently chose Sigfox because Sigfox has a partnership with a nanosatellite company that allows Sigfox networks to locate things on land or at sea. But after reading the release, all I could wonder was when did Sigfox start calling itself the 0G network company? (Sigfox)

Atmosic scores $28.5M for a low-power wireless chip: Atmosic is a startup building a new type of wireless chip that combines a Bluetooth LE radio with a new form of power management module and more granular sleep/wake performance. I profiled the company’s first chip, which offered up to 10X power savings, and at CES it will launch its second chip, the M3, which will combine the existing chip with an energy-harvesting module. Thus a company could build a product with a Bluetooth radio that relies solely on light, motion, RF signals, or temperature changes for power. The funding was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with investments from Clear Ventures, Walden International, Dolby Family Ventures, and Arden Road Investments and brings Atmosic’s total funding to $49.5 million. (Atmosic Technologies)

What if your car stopped when it caught you texting at the wheel? Bosch has shown off a camera inside a vehicle that tracks the driver’s facial expressions to see if they are awake, texting, looking for a child’s toy in the backseat, or engaging in other behaviors that might result in unsafe driving. The system can then take appropriate action based on the driver behavior to help ensure safer driving. This type of “driver awareness systems” may sound intrusive—after all, no one likes to be called out for bad behavior—but as someone who has had a version of this installed in my backseat in the form of an opinionated child who calls out texting while driving, I do think it could help save lives. I know I have stopped trying to look at my phone while on the road, and everyone is probably better off for it. (Digital Trends)

Kevin really enjoyed the Samsung SmartThings Wi-Fi system: This week, Kevin took out his Google Wi-Fi to test the new Samsung SmartThings mesh Wi-Fi system. Unlike most mesh networks, this one brings in network intelligence from Plume, which frankly sounds awesome. Kevin found it easy to set up and saw speed improvements in most of his house. He also liked how the system handled guest networks and security. (StaceyonIoT)

Apple has placed its HomeKit requirements on GitHub: Apple has opened up its HomeKit development documents ahead of participating in the effort to create a new smart home standard. (GitHub)

The best, deepest, and most interesting dive into digital twins I’ve encountered: I feel like I could devote several articles to this paper by Arup; unfortunately, I don’t have time. But as far as holiday reading goes, this 160-page report on using digital twins to help build and create sustainable built environments has almost a dozen case studies, tons of thought-provoking questions, and a great definition of what a digital twin is and isn’t. Download this and start reading. (Arup)