

Faceless sensors and tiny routers needed for the Internet of things - tdrnd
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/gigaom/articles/2013_01_03_faceless_sensors_and_compact_routers_are_ingredients_for_the_internet_of_things.html

======
unwind
I stopped reading after

 _The Co-founder of ThingSquare, Adam Dunkels, developed Contiki a programming
language designed for connecting and communication between sensors._

Contiki is an operating system, not a programming language. In the article the
name is linked to the main site at <http://contiki-os.org/>, which has OS in
the URL and which also says "The Open Source OS for the Internet of Things" on
the very front page very prominently.

Also, the quoted sentence above seems mis-edited to me, "for connecting and
communication" should be "for connecting and communicating with" or something.

Still, sounds like an interesting "vector" for internet of things, to rely on
smart phones as a "free" component providing screen and input.

------
jwomers
Whenever I think of a possible new hardware device, (which inevitably involves
it being connected to the internet!) my first thought is: how will the UI of
connecting to wifi work? Most often with a lot of devices, "setup" ==
"connecting to wifi", so having an easy way to do this using a standard
smartphone based UI is a very interesting idea.

Allowing faceless connections to wifi networks could allow for a new range of
small, screenless devices, or at least devices with smaller screens and
reduced interaction.

~~~
zokier
Maybe something like bluetooth pairing could work for wifi. Eg you would press
a button on the device, and it would broadcast a "request to join network"
message. Then you could authorize the request on your access points/routers
interface. Passcodes could be added for better security (to ensure that the
device doesn't attach to your neighbors network).

~~~
tdrnd
There is a mechanism called WiFi Protected Setup
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Protected_Setup>) that does something
similar, but none of the home routers I've personally used have had this
feature. There is a mandatory push-button mode in there.

~~~
zokier
Yeah, on a closer reading one mode of WPS sounds like it would fit the bill.
Too bad that it has also the major security hole mode ("enter AP PIN on
device" mode). Hopefully that can be selectively disabled and eventually
deprecated.

edit: Whats in WPS 2.0? There are some references to it, mainly saying that it
could fix the security issues in WPS. But I couldn't find any solid info _how_
it would to that.

