Since the very early stages of Domotz adventure we have been constantly asked, “What exactly is Domotz?” If there is 1 thing that can frazzle your brain it is finding the right way to explain something you are building. As a marketing manager, I was plagued. Defining Domotz kept my wheels turning day in and out.
The issue I faced was that existing words, categories and acronyms were insufficient to describe all the features that were being built into the Domotz.
While some features of Domotz are similar to those of a Network Monitoring Tool or remote access tool for example, at the same time there are so many differences. The team at Domotz was building something entirely different. We were building something much bigger than a tool.
That’s why we started defining Domotz as something entirely new a remote network monitoring software that’s build for the smart IoT. Let’s take a look a short trip back to the evolution of the “Internet of Things.”
A breif history of Smart Home IoT
The idea of IoT goes all the way back, at least thirty years to 1992. That’s when Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer – posing with his famous t-shirt “IP on everything” below – first theorized of a future when objects in our homes and offices would have a two-way connection to the Internet, to applications and to data.
Since Vint Cerf and the early days of the iOT, predictions have grown increasingly bolder. There have been many theorizations of millions and even billions of interconnected devices able to ‘talk’ to one another. This IoT chatter would completely revolutionize our lives.
While all this sounds really great – it is easy to see that we’re not there just yet. Even home automation, one of the most straightforward examples of IoT, is not nearly as advanced as one would believe.
For starters we have yet to see that intelligent-home we heard about in the sci-fi novels and comic books. The one that tells you what to wear, reminds you to buy milk and locks the door if you forgot to. The truth is that a house like would require a terribly complex system behind it, that no normal person would be capable of managing without professional help.
Smart Home IoT – Smart Home IoT will need some help
So a lot of people are wondering why the Internet of Things is currently thriving in the manufacturing industry but still struggling in our homes. The answer is really simple. These big companies have a bunch of IT pros that are paid to monitor the network, oversee all the different devices and take care of the entire system. Homes do not. Home users are in the best case IT enthusiasts and in the worst don’t even know what an IP address is.
There is no denying that home technology is getting more and more difficult for home users to deal with too. We’ve got laptops, smartphones, kitchen appliances, thermostats, security cameras, power switches, and so on, which are all connected to the local network. Connection is facilitated using technologies ranging from Ethernet, WiFi, MoCA, PLC, Z-Wave, ZigBee to Bluetooth. Technologically speaking – homes are becoming a not so easily solvable mess.
To get to the future tech smart home like in the comic books, we need to find a way to get the functionality of that IT pro into the home. Smart Homes will definitely need help managing the IoT.
Providing New Services for Smart Home IoT
Through our remote network monitoring software, we aim to power integration companies, IT professionals and service providers to be able to provide support, troubleshooting and remote managed services to smart homes.