IoT Interoperability – The Biggest Challenge for 2024

The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing rapidly, with analysts predicting there will be over 30 billion connected devices by 2024. However, one of the biggest challenges facing the IoT industry is interoperability – the ability for IoT devices and systems to communicate and exchange data with one another. Here is an in-depth look at the issues around IoT interoperability and why it remains the biggest challenge for 2024.

Why Interoperability Matters

Interoperability is crucial for the IoT for several reasons:

Enabling End-to-End Solutions

Most IoT solutions rely on multiple devices and systems working together from end to end. For example, a smart home system may include security cameras, smart locks, sensors, voice assistants, appliances and more. Interoperability enables these disparate devices to seamlessly connect and share data to deliver solutions. Without it, IoT implementations become fragmented and limited.

Avoiding Vendor Lock-In

Early IoT devices and platforms used proprietary technologies that “locked in” customers to single vendors. But interoperability allows mixing and matching of devices and platforms. This reduces reliance on single vendors and promotes competition and innovation.

Supporting Analytics and AI

Sophisticated IoT analytics and AI depend on aggregating and correlating data from diverse sources. Interoperability enables combining real-time data streams from IoT devices, legacy systems and external sources to unlock deeper insights.

The Interoperability Challenge

So why does interoperability remain the biggest IoT challenge for 2024? There are several contributing factors:

Proprietary Platforms and Protocols

Many major tech players have developed their own proprietary IoT platforms, protocols and ecosystems (e.g. AWS IoT, Azure IoT, Google Cloud IoT). This fragments the market and creates barriers to interoperability.

Immaturity of Standards

Open standards are needed to enable interoperability between different vendors’ systems. But IoT standards remain complex and immature. Established standards like MQTT and CoAP only cover transport protocols but don’t address higher level interoperability.

Diversity of Devices and Data

Billions of different sensors, devices, networks, data formats and applications make up the IoT universe. This tremendous diversity makes unified interoperability exceptionally difficult. Translation layers add latency and cost.

Security, Privacy and Safety

Interconnecting devices and data raises major security, privacy and safety concerns. Systems that are air-gapped for security reasons become incompatible with other systems.

Approaches to Improving Interoperability

Here are some current initiatives and approaches aimed at improving IoT interoperability:

• Open standards – Organizations like the Open Connectivity Foundation are working to specify open, interoperable standards at all protocol layers. Adoption remains challenging however.

• Gateway hubs – Gateways can translate between devices using different protocols and data formats. But gateways add cost and latency.

• Edge computing – By processing data locally on devices, edge computing avoids interoperability issues sending data to the cloud. However, devices must share common edge programming frameworks.

• Metadata tagging – Tagging data with semantic metadata can make it understandable across systems. But schema alignment is still needed.

• Cloud platform integration – IoT platforms like Microsoft Azure IoT and Amazon Web Services IoT are expanding integration capabilities between cloud services. But on-device interoperability remains challenging.

• Blockchain – Some blockchain initiatives aim to provide decentralized interoperability frameworks for IoT. But blockchain is still immature for large-scale IoT data sharing.

Outlook for 2024

While promising, these initiatives still face major hurdles to enabling seamless, plug-and-play interoperability between diverse sensors, networks and applications. Significant technology improvements and cohesive industry collaboration will be needed to fully address IoT interoperability by 2024.

In 2024, I expect siloed systems and limited interoperability to remain the norm. However, we will see expanded use of gateways and hubs to bridge between selected devices and protocols. Edge computing and analytics may also improve, circumventing the need for full cloud-level interoperability. Overall, overcoming the complex barriers to comprehensive IoT interoperability will remain the biggest challenge for 2024 and beyond.