Web of Things
The Web of Things is a vision inspired from the Internet of Things where everyday devices and objects, i.e. objects that contain an embedded device or computer, are connected by fully integrating them to the Web. Examples of smart devices and objects are wireless sensor networks, ambient devices, household appliances, RFID tagged objects, etc.
Unlike in the many systems that exist for the Internet of Things, the Web of Things is about re-using the Web standards to connect the quickly expanding eco-system of embedded devices built into everyday smart objects. Well-accepted and understood standards and blueprints (such as URI, HTTP, REST, Atom, etc.) are used to access the functionality of the smart objects.
Technical characteristics
The properties of a Web of Things can be summarized as follow:
- Uses HTTP as an application protocol rather than as a transport protocol as done in the world of WS-* Web Services [1]
- Exposes the synchronous functionality of smart objects through a REST interface (also known as RESTful API) and more generally respects the blueprints of Resource Oriented Architectures.[2]
- Exposes the asynchronous functionality (i.e. events) of smart objects through the use of largely accepted Web syndication standards such as Atom or server-push Web mechanisms such as Comet.
These characteristics ensure the loose-coupling of services provided by the smart objects, furthermore they offer a uniform interface to access and build on the functionality of smart objects.
Application examples
One of the early prototypes of the Web of Things is the "Energie Visible" project in which sensors capable of monitoring and controlling the energy consumption of household appliances offer a RESTful API to their functionality. This API is then used to create a physical Mashup.[3]
Paraimpu,[4] is a social tool with the aim to allow people to connect, use, share and compose Things, services and devices to create personalized applications in the field of the Web of Things.
Nimbits,[5] is an open source data historian server built on cloud computing architecture that provides connectivity between devices using data points.
Cosm (formerly Pachube) is a commercial web of things data aggregator and data mining website often integrated into the Web of Things.
An alternative approach taken by Sense Tecnic Systems [6] focuses on a lightweight toolkit for developing IoT applications and targets rapid development using Web technologies and protocols. The WoTKit toolkit has been described at the 2012 IoT conference [7] and builds on research from UBC's Media and Graphics Interdisciplinary Centre[8] , in particular the work on the MAGIC Broker as published at IoT 2010[9].
References
- ^ Richardson, Leonard; Ruby, Sam (2007). RESTful Web Services. O'Reilly (published (May 8, 2007)). pp. 299–314. ISBN 0-596-52926-0.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|publication-date=(help) - ^ Richardson, Leonard; Ruby, Sam (2007). RESTful Web Services. O'Reilly (published (May 8, 2007)). pp. 79–105. ISBN 0-596-52926-0.
{{cite book}}: Check date values in:|publication-date=(help) - ^ "Energie Visible Web of Things Project" (PDF).
- ^ "Paraimpu, a social tool for the Web of Things". Paraimpu. Retrieved 2012-05-28.
- ^ "free, social and open source internet of things". Nimbits. Retrieved 2012-05-10.
- ^ "WoTKit: Lightweight IoT toolkit". SenseTecnic. Retrieved 2012-08-05.
- ^ Blackstock, M. (2012). "IoT Mashups with the WoTKit". Internet of Things 2012 (IEEE). In Press.
{{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help); Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ "Media and Graphics Interdisiplinary Centre, University of British Columbia". UBC. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
- ^ Blackstock, M. (Nov. 29 2010-Dec. 1 2010). "MAGIC Broker 2: An open and extensible platform for the Internet of Things" (PDF). IoT 2010 (IEEE press): 1–8. doi:10.1109/IOT.2010.5678443.
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Further reading
- Guinard, Dominique (2010-11). "A Resource Oriented Architecture for the Web of Things". Proc. of IoT 2010 (IEEE International Conference on the Internet of Things). Tokyo, Japan.
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- Guinard, Dominique (2009-04). "Towards the Web of Things: Web Mashups for Embedded Devices" (PDF). Proceedings of the International World Wide Web Conferences. Madrid, Spain.
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- Stirbu, V. (2008). "Towards a RESTful Plug and Play Experience in the Web of Things". Semantic Computing, 2008 IEEE International Conference on. Semantic Computing, 2008 IEEE International Conference on. pp. 512–517.
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- Fielding, Roy T.; Taylor, Richard N. (2002-05). "Principled Design of the Modern Web Architecture" (PDF). ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT). 2 (2). New York: Association for Computing Machinery: 115–150. doi:10.1145/514183.514185. ISSN 1533-5399.
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- Fielding, Roy Thomas (2000). Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures. Doctoral dissertation. University of California, Irvine.
- Richardson, Leonard; Ruby, Sam (2007). RESTful Web Services. O'Reilly (published (May 8, 2007)). ISBN 0-596-52926-0.
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- Fortuna, Carolina; Grobelnik, Marko (2011-03-09). Tutorial: The Web of Things. Proceedings of the World Wide Web Conference 2011, Hyderabad, India. Association for Computing Machinery.
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