Re: [FYI] WWDC 2016 Apple Homekit

I'm hoping that having a required set, tied to a versioning mechanism, will
allow for manufacturers to still enable their optional settings, so
companies can be encouraged to experiment and push the existing version.
However, by having a fixed required set, it makes it much more likely that
devices within that category will interoperate.

Scott


  Scott Jenson   |   Chrome UX  | scottj@google.com | +1 650 265-7174

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 1:48 AM, Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> wrote:

>
> On 19 Jun 2016, at 21:11, Scott Jenson <scottj@google.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 4:14 AM, Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> wrote:
>>
>> Essentially, to integrate to any existing IoT device, we just need the
>> metadata describing the data and interaction models exposed
>> to applications, the protocols and communication patterns that can be used,
>> and descriptions of the kinds of things are involved and the
>> relationships between them.
>>
>
> There is quite a bit packed into your sentence. As a UX designer, I'd like
> to make sure that we appreciate that Apple is doing much more than just
> "metadata description and discovery":
>
>    - A *limited* set of device categories
>    - Clear and *limited* functional schema for each category
>    - A fairly limited app to find and control these devices
>
> I'm not disagreeing with your comment, this is a "yes and" type of reply.
> If we truly expect these devices to work in in the home, we have to go
> beyond just the metadata description and discovery. We need to appreciate
> interoperability comes from hard decisions: by having a strong, if limited
> set of devices and functions.  I realize this is a more business strategy
> comment than an engineering one. However, I'm fearful we're just going to
> recreate another "32 Bluetooth profiles" mess all over again.
>
> Is there any proposal to have the concept of a required base set of
> functionality? There can also be an optional set but taking a hard stand on
> required, as Apple as done, goes a long way in providing interoperability.
>
> Scott
>
>
> Hi Scott,
>
> Thanks for replying. You touch on an interesting challenge, how to foster
> convergence on a common set of models. A joint proposal from say Apple and
> Google could be a big help with that.  A related challenge is how to
> support an agile process for standardizing models, with a clear progression
> for increasing maturity from experimental, to commercially deployed, to
> massively deployed.  I am thinking of lightweight semantics along the lines
> of schema.org, and a easy way for people to browse for vocabularies (to
> encourage re-use), to register their support, link to implementations and
> so forth.
>
> p.s. In respect to the application paradigm, there seems to be general
> support for things with properties, actions and events, based upon the
> success of event driving programming.
>
> —
>    Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org>
>
>
>
>