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Internet of things specialist People Power announced the availability of its IoT Suite, a customizable software stack that provides utilities additional revenue streams by offering white-label security, energy and home-care services.
Made up of four software tiers that integrate with existing frameworks, the IoT suite provides utilities with the ability to connect, engage, deliver and manage smart-home IoT services through an all-in-one solution.
The first tier, Presto, features an open-source software development kit (SDK) and a list of open application programming interfaces (APIs) so manufacturers can internet-enable devices with low-cost hosting.
Virtuoso, the second tier, is the mobile and web app framework for iOS, Android and web, featuring a user experience designed by behavioral psychologists and usability experts. Its unified device control lets users deliver IoT services.
“Using our IoT Suite to facilitate a number of energy conservation pilot programs across the nation—from Hawaii to Cape Cod—we’ve learned that people’s priorities as participants in these programs are not focused on energy conservation and cost savings as their primary concern,” Tim Nelson, chief marketing officer of People Power, told eWEEK. “It’s not even in the top five. If a smartphone app and IoT-connected devices enable energy conservation while doing other important jobs for them, then that’s great.”
This, he said, points to the importance of the company’s consumer app Presence in helping facilitate a number of lifestyle improvements, including home security features.
“There are a myriad of hardware devices that monitor and help manage energy use in the home or business, but that’s simply not enough,” he said. “Consumers are looking for sweeping improvement throughout the home—not just energy.”
Symphony, the third software tier, is a personalized cloud IoT service that features analytics and the ability to connect to a community of social networks to encourage sharing, cooperation and competition.
The fourth software tier, Maestro, is the suite’s command center, which enrolls and supports users, issues challenges and offers rewards to keep them engaged, making broadly delivered consumer IoT programs easy to manage.
“Ease of use is one of the basic tenants of everything we build,” Nelson said. “Everything must be designed to make people productive in minutes, not months. There’s simply too much to be accomplished by users of our platform. We know that.”
Nelson said the IoT industry traditionally had been thinking primarily about connecting devices to the cloud, but not beyond.
“Developing intelligence about what the end user actually needs in a programmed fashion, delivering nearly intuitive responses to their behaviors with services that solve problems almost before they happen, is the goal,” Nelson said. “It’s more than the binary thinking of, ‘He’s home now, so turn on a light.’ To consider having IoT solutions pre-sense the consumer’s need is the goal of our consumer product, Presence.”