Although this is a shame it is yet another sign (for me) that the 'Internet of Things' is going to be DoA if we have to also rely on them for a backend cloud service. Most of these devices could be run in a completely decentralised way, such that if the company goes under, your device is hardly affected. e.g. I don't expect my light switches to stop working if the parent company gets acquired or shuts down.
There are real challenges to making distributed systems easier to build but I'm working with others on that c.f http://nymote.org and http://openmirage.org.
I don't expect my light switches to stop working if the parent company gets acquired or shuts down
That's the simple case, where you are only using devices from a single vendor. If you - god forbid - own devices from two different companies and try to connect them in any meaningful way, your setup might suddenly stop working as soon as one of the following happens:
- Company A shuts down.
- Company B shuts down.
- The hub service that you used to connect Product A and Product B shuts down.
- Any one of the involved companies have a dispute with any other of the involved companies and cease cooperation/demand that their products not be used together until contracts are re-negotiated.
- Any of the companies makes a breaking API change and the other's don't have the time/money/motivation to update their software accordingly.
Lights can still be switched off/on without the ninja blocks cloud, it still works through your LAN even if internet is down. You lose the rules engine though. I like this feature on my NB. I use it for lamps around house, triggered from buttons on wall and in phone app. Bypasses cloud and the switch response time is very fast because of this. Hasn't missed a beat for a long time, the Ninja Block is a great little device.
For any of this IOT stuff, a reliable cloud service is essential. Apparently there are ways to have my own "mini cloud" for my Ninja Block, so I'll be following that up before the official one shuts down.
Completely agree. But of course using a cloud service means no need to run a server on your own network/device or have to punch holes in your router to have the device accessible whilst you are not at home. Requiring either of those wouldn't help IoT adoption outside of enthusiasts.
If you could give everyone their own 'personal cloud', without having them become sysadmins, then it's possible (of course, that's not easy but it's also why it's a valuable goal). The work under Nymote has a longer term vision so not ready to help people just yet -- some more detail at http://nymote.org/blog/2015/brewing-miso-to-serve-nymote/
In this instance, I bet sandstorm.io could come up with a transition for Ninja Blocks users. I hope they think about it.
This is only an issue if you buy proprietary devices for the platform. As long as the individual components (lights, sensors etc) use standard formats (z-wave etc) you should be able to run them on any IoS platform.
Comments
Although this is a shame it is yet another sign (for me) that the 'Internet of Things' is going to be DoA if we have to also rely on them for a backend cloud service. Most of these devices could be run in a completely decentralised way, such that if the company goes under, your device is hardly affected. e.g. I don't expect my light switches to stop working if the parent company gets acquired or shuts down.
There are real challenges to making distributed systems easier to build but I'm working with others on that c.f http://nymote.org and http://openmirage.org.
I don't expect my light switches to stop working if the parent company gets acquired or shuts down
That's the simple case, where you are only using devices from a single vendor. If you - god forbid - own devices from two different companies and try to connect them in any meaningful way, your setup might suddenly stop working as soon as one of the following happens:
- Company A shuts down.
- Company B shuts down.
- The hub service that you used to connect Product A and Product B shuts down.
- Any one of the involved companies have a dispute with any other of the involved companies and cease cooperation/demand that their products not be used together until contracts are re-negotiated.
- Any of the companies makes a breaking API change and the other's don't have the time/money/motivation to update their software accordingly.
Lights can still be switched off/on without the ninja blocks cloud, it still works through your LAN even if internet is down. You lose the rules engine though. I like this feature on my NB. I use it for lamps around house, triggered from buttons on wall and in phone app. Bypasses cloud and the switch response time is very fast because of this. Hasn't missed a beat for a long time, the Ninja Block is a great little device.
For any of this IOT stuff, a reliable cloud service is essential. Apparently there are ways to have my own "mini cloud" for my Ninja Block, so I'll be following that up before the official one shuts down.
Completely agree. But of course using a cloud service means no need to run a server on your own network/device or have to punch holes in your router to have the device accessible whilst you are not at home. Requiring either of those wouldn't help IoT adoption outside of enthusiasts.
If you could give everyone their own 'personal cloud', without having them become sysadmins, then it's possible (of course, that's not easy but it's also why it's a valuable goal). The work under Nymote has a longer term vision so not ready to help people just yet -- some more detail at http://nymote.org/blog/2015/brewing-miso-to-serve-nymote/
In this instance, I bet sandstorm.io could come up with a transition for Ninja Blocks users. I hope they think about it.
This is only an issue if you buy proprietary devices for the platform. As long as the individual components (lights, sensors etc) use standard formats (z-wave etc) you should be able to run them on any IoS platform.