With the gradual growth of more and more IoT chip companies, many excellent capitals have also come to an end, and venture capital has invested in many excellent chip companies, thus further forming a good business cycle, continuously expanding IoT application scenarios and more The emergence of cost-effective core WiFi/4G/low-power Bluetooth chips will accelerate the further expansion of the smart Internet of Things.
The follow-up of many technology giants and investment institutions has made the public feel the immeasurable development potential of the smart Internet of Things in the future; the repeated explanation of application scenarios has painted a beautiful picture of smart life for ordinary consumers. However, this cannot cover up the problems existing in the intelligent Internet of Things itself. Apart from the highly subjective price, there are still several self-evident problems with the smart Internet of Things. One is fragmentation. Smart IoT devices are not a single product, but a collection of several or even dozens of devices of various types; Brother often forms its own system and presents a closed state; the third is incompatibility, devices of the same brand can be freely compatible in the early stage, and can be expanded and upgraded later. When encountering cross-brand situations, "heroes are useless" and lose the means of interconnection and mutual control .
The industrial-grade Internet of Things also has relatively avoidable docking problems. In addition to the above-mentioned problems, it is also worth optimizing and breaking through the signal problems of network selection and the difficulty of hybrid networking; at the same time, many project R&D teams are The management and advancement of emergency projects is also a headache for the industrial Internet of Things. All roads lead to Rome, and there are many ways to solve these problems. Open SDK is one of them. SDK is a very professional vocabulary, the Chinese name is software development kit, "generally it is a collection of development tools used by software engineers to build application software for specific software packages, software frameworks, hardware platforms, operating systems, etc." , what is commonly called API (Application Programming Interface) is also included in the SDK.
Obviously, whether the SDK is open or not has little to do with ordinary consumers, but many smart IoT companies still choose to "open it to the outside world." At the beginning of last year, Nest, a provider of smart IoT equipment valued at US$3.2 billion by Google, proposed to open the API of its product thermostat to the outside world and officially implemented it; similarly, Haier, a home appliance supplier, is on the "bangzhuang road" leading to the smart IoT A similar strategy has been adopted. The air intelligent controller "Star Box" developed by them in conjunction with Huazhong University of Science and Technology has also opened its API and SDK. Therefore, the underlying protocol of the SDK is opened to third parties, giving geeks and makers greater space for “creation” of smart devices.
Since it is an open SDK, openness is the first focus, at least it is an important means to deal with the overly closed and incompatible nature of the intelligent Internet of Things. Opening the SDK first means that the corresponding smart IoT devices have "platform" attributes. Third-party developers can not only call relevant program data, but also realize docking with their own devices. At the same time, the open SDK allows developers to further develop software and hardware and improve device functions based on their own needs. But looking at it from another perspective, this kind of openness is actually limited. It seems more like it is for technical personnel. At most, it is professional users. The proportion of these users in all customers of the enterprise is very small, so the openness of the SDK The goal will not be simply "open". In fact, it is not difficult to find that whether it is an open SDK or an open API, it often involves cooperation with a third party. This does not mean cooperation with third parties on the opening itself, but the cooperation with third parties after opening the SDK.
Of course, we can also use a popular word in the smart IoT industry - ecology to explain the purpose of smart IoT manufacturers opening up their SDKs. Through the open SDK, on the device, smart IoT manufacturers can connect different brands or peripheral products in series to create their own ecological chain; in terms of development, smart IoT manufacturers can attract more partners and form their own relationship circle.
An easy-to-use and well-designed SDK must follow the following four basic principles, namely:
- SDK is safe and stable
- Unified development specifications
- Library small but refined
- Does not rely on third-party SDK
- Security and stability: Considering that the SDK needs to be embedded in the App, the most important feature of the SDK is security, which will not cause App data leakage due to random open interfaces; the second most important thing is the stability of the SDK, the Crash of the SDK If it is not caught and processed, it will cause the application to crash completely (this will lead to a very poor experience of the app accessed by the third party), and even directly lead to the loss of users on the access side;
- Unified development specification: For the SDK development specification, a unified naming specification is very important. The best state is "the access party can know which manufacturer's SDK it is by seeing the interface name", in other words, the naming of the SDK Unified standards form the brand effect of your own company, and also facilitate developers to access and use. In addition, you also need to have your own coding standards. You can find the standard templates of major manufacturers on the Internet, and sort out your own standards through reference, so as to unify the code style as soon as possible;
- Library is small but refined: Small means to avoid causing a large increase in the access party’s App, otherwise it will cause dissatisfaction from the access party and even remove it from the shelves. Fine means to focus on functions, such as Jiguang Push, which means focusing on push-related functions;
- Not relying on third-party SDK: This is also well understood. If the SDK relies on other third-party SDKs, it will not only increase the size of the SDK, but also affect the cost of integrating the SDK on the access side.
However, the premise of opening the SDK is that the smart IoT company itself has certain strength and has the capital to open the SDK. Otherwise, even if it is open, it will be difficult to get anything. The application scenarios of embedded SDK are very wide. The following are some common application scenarios:
- IoT device development: Embedded SDK can be used to develop various IoT devices, such as smart IoT devices, smart health devices, smart transportation devices, etc.
- Industrial control system : Embedded SDK can be used to develop various industrial control systems, such as automated production lines, robot control systems, computer room monitoring systems , etc.
- Smart wearable devices: Embedded SDK can be used to develop various smart wearable devices, such as smart watches, smart glasses, smart fitness equipment, etc.
- Automotive electronic systems : Embedded SDK can be used to develop various automotive electronic systems, such as in-vehicle entertainment systems, vehicle control systems, car networking systems , etc.
- Smart IoT system : Embedded SDK can be used to develop various smart IoT systems, such as smart lighting systems , smart security systems , smart home appliance systems, etc.
In general, the open SDK can be used to develop various scenarios that require smart physical network systems, such as industrial automation , smart Internet of Things, smart medical care, automotive electronics and other fields. It can help developers quickly build and deploy embedded applications, improve development efficiency and quality, assist more enterprises to increase speed and efficiency, and accelerate the construction process of smart Internet of Things.