Sierra Wireless Launches Open Interface Standard for IoT Applications

Sierra Wireless introduced an open hardware reference design called Project mangOH along with an open interface standard that’s been adopted by Freescale, Linear Technology and Texas Instruments (TI), it said Wednesday. The IoT “can only be realized when technologies are interoperable,” said Sierra Wireless Chief Technology Officer Philippe Guillemette in a statement. Sierra is contributing to both open source and projects and standards bodies, it said. The IoT connector open interface standard is designed to take complexity and cost out of ensuring that different wireless and sensor technologies communicate, said Guillemette. Sierra compared its IoT connector to the Mini PCIe standard used in laptop, tablet and networking applications by enabling plug-and-play hardware for IoT developers. Project mangOH is the first implementation of the IoT connector, and Freescale, Linear Technology and TI have developed wireless module designs based on the standard, enabling Bluetooth, 6LoWPAN, Thread, Wi-Fi and ZigBee technologies, Sierra said.