Application Development for the Internet of Things: Observations and Challenges

International audienceThe Internet of Things (IoT) domain can be considered to be an amalgamation of the hitherto well- researched Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSAN) and Pervasive Computing domains. However, application development on this platform still remains challenging. In this paper, we first discuss a specific real world instance of an oft- cited IoT application: the Smart Home application, and gain insight into IoT application development by actually implementing it. Based on the above, we then present the design, development and deployment techniques for a real world IoT system from ground up and describe of various interaction patterns that naturally occur in such applications. We further discuss the challenges faced while reusing and combining approaches from the existing domains of WSANs and Pervasive Computing, into the domain of IoT. Finally, we conclude by using these insights to present a roadmap for designing an application development framework for IoT