Prodea aims to unify the Internet of Things with its new ‘Residential OS’ platform

By Drew Prindle April 8, 2014

Internet of Things — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Despite the amount of hype around the phrase right now, the Internet of Things isn’t quite a reality just yet. The ecosystem is still extremely fragmented — we’ve got more network-connected devices than you can shake a stick at, but not all of them can communicate with each other.

There are dozens of startups that have sought to fix this problem over the past few years, but there’s one among them that actually has a good shot at achieving such a lofty goal, it’s definitely Prodea.

Prodea, an eight-year old company with more than $100 million in funding already gathered up, believes it has the solution with Residential OS (ROS) — a white-label platform that aims to unite the disjointed world of connected devices.

ROS is designed to work with a wide range of different connected gizmos — not only things like smart lights and door sensors, but also things like appliances, home theater systems, and web-based services. In a lot of ways it’s like the automation service IFTTT, but built directly into the various systems and fixtures in your house.

If the platform manages to gain widespread adoption, it could provide us with that seamless Internet of Things experience we’ve all been waiting for. You know — the one where your fitness tracker tells your fridge how many steps you’ve taken, your fridge recognizes that you’ve just grabbed a piece of cheesecake, and your online health and wellness service uses that information to verbally chastise you through your surround sound speakers.

Prodea definitely isn’t the first company to tackle this problem, and while we’re seeing all kinds of connected home services launching from companies like AT&T, and protocols like Zigbee and Z-Wave continuing to gain traction in helping connected devices communicate, Prodea is the first company to offer a white-label platform that works with a wide variety of servcies.

The jury’s still out on whether or not that will translate into success, but it does mean that Prodea is a company you should keep an eye on moving forward.

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Topics

Internet of Things (IoT)

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Drew Prindle is an award-winning writer, editor, and storyteller who currently serves as Senior Features Editor for Digital…

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