PRESS RELEASE:
Ayla Networks has announced new features of its IoT platform that make it easier and more convenient for manufacturers to manage their IoT products—especially as they deploy many thousands or millions of connected products—and to use IoT data from connected products to improve their businesses.
“While most IoT technology providers are still focused on issues of how to get connected to the IoT, Ayla is addressing the big question from manufacturers who already have connected products: Now what?” said Adrian Caceres, CTO, vice president engineering and co-founder of Ayla Networks. “Think of this latest set of updates to our Ayla IoT platform as building blocks enabling the next phase of IoT evolution—by helping manufacturers do useful things with IoT data generated by their connected products.”
The promise of the IoT has always been about using the data generated by connected devices—about the real-world performance of the IoT products as well as how people actually use the products—to improve future product designs, perform predictive maintenance, and provide add-on services that enhance the value for end users while providing additional revenue streams for manufacturers.
The Ayla IoT platform updates, all of which are at the Ayla Cloud level, include both standard and premium features. The new features are:
Dashboard 1.5 improves usability. This latest revision of Ayla’s web-based IoT device management and configuration dashboard adds new functionality and has an enhanced user interface (UI) that lets manufacturers manage their IoT products better, faster and more intuitively. The new UI also was redesigned to scale smoothly, so that manufacturers can quickly find and manage up to millions of devices.
User-controlled integrations with third-party cloud services improve the value of connected products for end users. Also referred to as “user opt in,” this feature allows manufacturers to pre-configure cloud-to-cloud connections between their IoT products and various third-party cloud services or systems, such as energy demand management or home security. End users can enable or disable these connections as they choose.
Data Streaming Service (DSS) provides manufacturers with continuous, instant access to their IoT data. This premium feature allows IoT data from a product connected to the Ayla Cloud to be sent directly to the manufacturer, without having to request or pull it from the Ayla Cloud. With DSS, a manufacturer’s IoT data—which they own—streams or flows automatically from the Ayla Cloud to the manufacturer’s servers, instead of being stored in the Ayla Cloud. As a result, manufacturers save time by gaining near-real time access to their data, which they can then analyze and use.
Data Export delivers IoT data on demand to manufacturers. Data Export enables manufacturers to export data generated by their IoT products from the Ayla Cloud, then push the data to wherever they need it. Unlike the DSS feature, which is a continuous and live form of data export, the Data Export feature lets manufacturers export their data periodically, as needed and on demand.
Dealer Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) enables manufacturers to empower their dealer and service networks. In the IoT, RBAC enables connected products to be controlled differently based on specified user roles. Ayla’s dealer RBAC is a premium feature that allows manufacturers to provide their dealers, service centers or other affiliated organizations with permission to gain access to their connected devices and/or certain aspects of the IoT data they generate, for troubleshooting, maintenance or other service-related activities.
Single Sign-On (SSO) is a time-saving convenience for manufacturers managing their products on the Ayla IoT platform. This premium feature allows manufacturer users already signed in and authorized via their own web portals or another authenticated third-party system to use the Ayla Cloud without having to sign separately. This ease-of-use feature means that manufacturer staff managing their connected products using the Ayla IoT platform don’t need to keep signing in over and over again. It also helps manufacturers save costs by not having to maintain a separate set of user accounts.
The Ayla IoT platform was a pioneer in enabling leading manufacturers worldwide to connect their products and join the IoT. Ayla provides comprehensive, end-to-end connectivity extending from the IoT product to the cloud and to the mobile apps controlling the devices.
As the IoT continues to evolve, and based on the experiences of Ayla’s existing manufacturer customers and feedback from the members of its Customer Advisory Board, Ayla continues to expand its platform capabilities so that manufacturers can take best advantage of each stage of IoT evolution.
“Our goal is to stay one step ahead of what manufacturers need—so that whenever a manufacturer is ready to move to the next stage of IoT evolution, the Ayla platform is ready and waiting to help them get there,” said Caceres.
More information will be available at Ayla’s CES Booth #41160 in the Smart Home Marketplace at the Sands Hotel, Halls A – D. CES visitors can also learn more about the Ayla IoT platform, attend themed networking sessions and see innovative IoT products from leading manufacturers and service providers by registering to visit Ayla’s suite at Caesars Palace.
In addition, has added Amazon Alexa integration and support for Amazon Alexa’s Smart Home Skills to its Ayla IoT platform. This means that manufacturers with connected products running on the Ayla IoT cloud can very quickly and easily enable users to control IoT products using spoken commands through the Alexa voice service.
“By architecting an Alexa integration into our IoT platform, we are enabling manufacturers that use the platform to go from zero to a completely functional Alexa voice-controlled product fast, with little effort,” said Adrian Caceres, CTO, vice president of engineering and co-founder of Ayla Networks. “It’s just another example of Ayla’s fundamental approach to building our IoT platform, which is to do the hard work it takes to support IoT connections and functionality so that both manufacturers and end users can benefit.”
With the new Alexa integration, connected products using the Ayla IoT platform can implement Alexa “Smart Home skills”—Alexa’s name for capabilities, analogous to apps—without manufacturers writing any code or running any servers on AWS. From a technical perspective, all manufacturers need to do is connect and configure their connected products using the Ayla dashboard.
“Manufacturers still have to certify their products through Alexa, of course, but they don’t have to worry about technical issues, APIs [application programming interfaces] or other coding,” said Caceres. “Using the Ayla platform provides manufacturers with the smoothest way to begin taking advantage of voice—a natural evolution in the control of IoT products.”
Voice control of IoT products is expected to be an important interface option for environments such as smart homes, especially as more products become connected. Instead of opening apps on their smartphones to control IoT products, users can simply speak commands or ask questions—for example, “It’s too hot in here”; “Wake me at 7:00 am”; “Dim the lights for my dinner party”; “What dryer cycle should I use for my flannel sheets?”—and the appropriate connected devices are adjusted or respond accordingly.
The new Alexa integration highlights the configurability, scalability and interoperability advantages built into the Ayla IoT platform.
Unlike other IoT technology approaches that require custom coding for every configuration change, the Ayla IoT platform uses templates—virtual representations of a connected product in the cloud—to map properties between the Ayla cloud and other clouds and services, such as Alexa. As a result, making changes to a configuration using the Ayla IoT platform takes only a few minutes.
Manufacturers using the Ayla IoT platform also do not need to worry about ongoing support for the Alexa integration. As with all the functionality and capabilities provided and supported by its IoT platform, Ayla makes sure that integrations are maintained and managed over time, and that API and other software code is maintained and debugged.
Importantly, updates, new functionality and other changes made at the Ayla IoT cloud level can be made available to all the IoT products on the Ayla IoT platform, regardless of the number of connected products.
Ayla representatives will be available to answer questions about the new Alexa integration during CES, being held here January 5 to 8, 2017, in Booth #41160 at the Sands Expo Center. CES visitors can also learn more about the Ayla IoT platform, attend themed networking sessions and see innovative IoT products from leading manufacturers and service providers by registering to visit Ayla’s suite at Caesars Palace.