Thingsquare aims to help 'dumb' hardware become smart

The open-source software company Thingsquare has begun rolling out Thingsquare Mist, a platform designed to help developers of all things “smart” to quickly add internet connectivity to their devices.

The standards-based mesh networking platform can be used to enable everything from smart lighting to smart homes to smart cities.

“The ‘internet of things’ market is growing quickly due to new low-cost hardware and manufacturing technology,” said Adam Dunkels, founder of Thingsquare and author of the Contiki operating system. “The internet of things needs open standards and straightforward software to move forward.”

Thingsquare is currently working with several manufacturers to bring Thingsquare Mist to a range of hardware platforms. Now in private beta with a set of selected customers, Thingsquare Mist is scheduled to be available by the first quarter of 2013.

According to the company, “Thingsquare Mist is a software system that allows low-cost, low-power radio microcontrollers to communicate using the Internet Protocols (IP) and to connect to the internet. Thingsquare Mist devices autonomously form self-healing wireless networks that allow them to send and receive data to and from the internet, without having to worry about network setup or configuration parameters.”