The Thread Group and Open Connectivity Foundation Create Liaison Agreement to Increase Application Connectivity and Choice in Connected Home

Collaboration will help Thread Group and Open Connectivity Foundation
members easily design and build products that leverage both technologies

SAN RAMON, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Today the
Thread Group and the Open
Connectivity Foundation (OCF) announced that the two alliances will
work together in their mission to advance the adoption of connected home
products. The Thread Group and OCF share many member companies who will
benefit from this liaison agreement, and both groups are committed to
driving improved cross-application interoperability and device
connectivity in the connected home.

To help the internet of things realize its full potential, companies
across the product development spectrum – including silicon, software,
platform, and finished-goods ­- must ensure interoperability across
common technology areas. The organizations will work together to ensure
that OCF’s application layer will be fully compatible with Thread’s
low-power, secure and scalable IPv6-based wireless mesh network layer.

“Thread Group members identified and prioritized OCF as a strategically
important application layer to run over the Thread wireless mesh
network,” noted Thread Group president, Grant Erickson. “In order for
consumers to put their faith in the connected home, their experience
must be simple, reliable, and effortless. This agreement takes us one
step closer to our common goal of ensuring that consumers will have
smart home devices that seamlessly work together out of the box,
regardless of their brand or function.”

While the Thread Group focuses on the networking layer and OCF sits at
the application layer, both support low-power technologies at the center
of their approaches to the connected home. In addition, both
technologies were designed to scale up from the internet of small things
to the internet of larger things, which is an easier task than scaling
down. Together, the Thread Group and OCF are committed to providing
consumers with a continuous and seamless product experience, and a
fully-functioning connected home framework that is easy-to-use from
setup and configuration, all the way through application-to-application
interactions.

“We work every day to unlock the opportunity of IoT that
interoperability will enable,” said Mike Richmond, executive director,
OCF. “But this collaboration with Thread is special. With Thread, we are
able to provide both of our members with a joint solution that enables
companies to more easily develop solutions for the connected home. ”

About Thread

Designed for consumers and devices in and around the home, Thread is an
IPv6 networking protocol built on open standards for low-power 802.15.4
mesh networks that can easily and securely connect hundreds of devices
to each other and directly to the cloud. The non-profit Thread Group is
focused on making Thread the foundation for the Internet of Things in
the home, educating product developers and consumers on the unique
features and benefits of Thread and ensuring a great user experience
through rigorous, meaningful product certification. Thread is backed by
industry-leading companies including ARM, Haiku Home, Nest Labs, NXP,
OSRAM, Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics, Schneider Electric, Silicon Labs,
Somfy, Tyco and Yale Security. Since opening its membership in October
2014, Thread has quickly grown to more than 240 members. For more
information, please visit http://www.threadgroup.org.

About Open Connectivity Foundation

Billions of connected devices (devices, phones, computers and sensors)
should be able to communicate with one another regardless of
manufacturer, operating system, chipset or physical transport. The Open
Connectivity Foundation (OCF) is creating a specification and sponsoring
an open source project (IoTivity, www.iotivity.org)
to make this possible. OCF will unlock the massive opportunity in the
IoT market, accelerate industry innovation and help developers and
companies create solutions that map to a single open specification. With
more than 200 members that include top companies from around the world,
OCF will help ensure secure interoperability for consumers, business,
and industry. For more information, please visit www.openconnectivity.org.

Contacts

Gabriella Asmus for The Thread Group
Gabriella.asmus@finnpartners.com
415-348-2721
or
Sophie
Sieck for Open Connectivity Foundation
ocfpr@blancandotus.com
415-856-5120