Enabling medical equipment to record accurately the time of diagnostic readings, making it easier to locate connected devices and speeding up the time to develop apps are some of the features to be unveiled as part of the fourth set of OneM2M specifications.

As more organisations and national agencies advocate standardisation to advance the development of the IoT, the global standards initiative OneM2M is working towards the launch of release four of its international standard. Building on the original modular concept and responding to new priorities in the IoT market, the specifications will include requirements to support fog and edge computing, advance developments in the industrial, railway and vehicular markets, and support the use of IoT devices in public warning systems.

“We see each new release as a way of putting more tools in IoT developers’ toolboxes,” said OneM2M’s technical plenary chair, Roland Hechwartner. “We listen to our partners and work closely with members around the world to make sure we understand their needs. Then we seek to expand the OneM2M ecosystem with new features that will increase the speed of development of the IoT.”

One development in release four is that the service layer will now be able to detect when the clock on a connected device, such as a piece of diagnostic medical equipment for example, is not synchronised accurately with other devices. This should prevent inaccurate temperature or blood pressure readings being uploaded by a connected device. This not only has benefits for the patient and the medial professional reviewing the data but can also accelerate the use of IoT devices in the home healthcare sector enabling more care to be delivered outside of a medical facility.

Further advancements will see the service layer taking on tasks that an app would previously have had to do by itself. This frees up the app to work more quickly or to work on other functions and speeds up the time it takes for new apps to be developed. For example, instead of the app itself, the service layer could take on the task of automatically unlocking the front door of a home when the homeowner arrives and is identified by a facial recognition camera.

Finding the location of internet connected devices will also be made easier, as the service layer will be able to store location information and share it with any application that makes a location-based query. Perhaps an application wants to know what the temperature is in a certain location. Soon it will be able to make a geo-query and the service layer will go and find it for the end user.

“The IoT continues to grow which means OneM2M must both respond to new developments and stay ahead of emerging trends,” Hechwartner said. “Standards help to accelerate innovation but they have to be flexible enough to respond to user demands. As we continue to develop the next release of specifications, we would welcome involvement from new members and partners from anywhere in the world.”

OneM2M was formed in 2012 and consists of eight standards development organisations – Arib (Japan), Atis (USA), CCSA (China), Etsi (Europe), TIA (USA), TSDSI (India), TTA (Korea) and TTC (Japan) – together with industry fora and consortia and more than 200 member organisations. The specifications provide a framework to support applications and services such as the smart grid, connected car, home automation, public safety and health.