Prepare and certify your devices for IoT Plug and Play
Developing solutions with Azure IoT has never been faster, easier, or more secure. However, the tight coupling and integration between IoT device software and the software that matches it in the cloud can make it challenging to add different devices without spending hours writing device code.
IoT Plug and Play can solve this by enabling a seamless device-to-cloud integration experience. IoT Plug and Play from Microsoft is an open approach using Digital Twin Definition Language (based on JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data (JSON-LD)) that allows IoT devices to declare their capabilities to cloud solutions. It enables hardware partners to build devices that can easily integrate with cloud solutions based on Azure IoT Central, as well as third-party solutions built on top of Azure IoT Hub or Azure Digital Twins.
As such, we are pleased to announce that the IoT Plug and Play device certification program is now available for companies to certify and drive awareness of their devices tailored for solutions, while also reducing time to market. In this blog post, we will explore the common ecosystem challenges and business motivations for using IoT Plug and Play, as well as why companies are choosing to pursue IoT Plug and Play certification and the requirements and process involved.
Addressing ecosystem challenges and business needs with IoT Plug and Play
Across our ecosystem of partners and customers, we continue to see opportunities to simplify IoT. Companies are using IoT devices to help them find valuable insights ranging from how customers are using their products, to how they can optimize operations and reduce energy consumption. Yet there are also challenges to enabling these scenarios across energy, agriculture, retail, healthcare, and other industries as integrating IoT devices into cloud solutions can often be a time-consuming process.
Windows solved a similar industry problem with Plug and Play, which at its core, was a capability model that devices could declare and present to Windows when they were connected. This capability model made it possible for thousands of different devices to connect to Windows and be used without any software having to be installed manually on Windows.
IoT Plug and Play—which was announced during Microsoft Build in May 2019 —similarly addresses the ecosystem need to declare an open model language through an open approach. IoT Plug and Play is currently available in preview and offers numerous advantages for device builders, solution builders, and customers alike when it comes to reducing solution development time, cost, and complexity. By democratizing device integration, IoT Plug and Play helps remove entry barriers and opens new IoT device use cases. Since IoT Plug and Play-enabled solutions can understand the device model to start using devices without customization, the same interaction model can be used in any industry....
