The Protocol and the House that Tweets

An IBM'er, Andy Stanford-Clark, has wired up his house to the Internet. He installed sensors on several household objects that enables him to measure what is happening in his home. Andy can measure electrical consumption and monitor security amongst others. He is also able to start and stop those appliances, as well as switch lights on and off.

Furthemore, Andy has also rigged up a number of these sensors to push their information to twitter (andy_house). Using twitter you can monitor he can monitor his electrical consumption and monitor what is happening in the house.

Underpinning this is the MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) protocol. MQTT is a platform-agnostic protocol (recently celebrsating its 10-year anniversary) that supports communication with networked objects, like sensors. MQTT is available in sever integration products, including IBM's Websphere Message Broker.

Another example of an MQTT deployment is a project that IBM did with St. Jude Medical Center. The Merlin system communicates enables home monitoring of patients implanted with cardioverter defibrillators and pacemakers.


We are well on our way to realising the "Internet of Things".