Open Hardware Movement as a Booster of the IoT

There is no doubt for me. The IoT is really a big thing that will impact dramatically our life. In fact, the IoT is not something that just starts from nothing. Rather, IoT, in essence, is the harmonization of two parts that already existed:

• The Internet as a global platform that helped easing connecting people. Now, with IoT, Internet is called to ease connecting things.
• The Things that are existing devices that use to be alone. Now, with IoT, Things are able to communicate with each other.

Both part of the IoT are very known to all of us. And both of them had a great impact on our life so far. Internet is here for decades and the Things are here for very long time. With the Internet, you can now talk to you beloved ones for no additional cost, you can write to them, you can buy stuff from the local or the international market with few clicks, just to name a few nice impacts of the Internet on our life. And for the Things, just look around you, they are their: from the phone in your pocket, medical devices that help monitoring critical life signs, to these small things that are plugged in highway to count the number of passing cars.

Now, what the IoT is promising to us is connecting Things very easily with each other using the Internet.

But, is this the end of the story? I believe it is not.

Actually, there other nice facts that are happening also now and they will speed up the spread of the IoT movement.

As a software engineer, I took full advantage of the Open Source Movement to produce enterprise grade products. Image that Ritchie has required a license fee to use C language programming. Image that it was the case also for Java. Would it be possible for us to here? On the top of these two fundamental programming languages, people from the Open Source universe has built other programming languages and complete enterprise grade package that are ready for use.

The some phenomenon is starting to happen now with the Open Hardware Movement. The design of these smart things that are around us will be, in a very near future, open to everybody and, hence, will allow making the same things by everybody in a cost effective way  .

Electronic components and modules are getting more and more cheaper. With very limited budget, it is now possible for you to pick up an open hardware design and buy required electronic components to make that hardware. It is also possible for you to pick up ready-made modules based on open hardware design (so they will be cheap) and assemble them to build your own Thing.

The full story is this: smart Things that are around us since long time will be able to talk to each other over the Internet. And everyone of us will be able, at some extent, to build new smart Things in a very cost-effective and easy way as a result of the Open Hardware movement.