Fisher, RLedwaba, Lehlogonolo PIHancke, GPKruger, Carel P2017-05-162017-05-162015-03Fisher, R., Ledwaba, L., Hancke, G.P. and Kruger, C. 2015. Open hardware: a role to play in wireless sensor networks? Sensors, vol. 15(3): 6818-68441424-822010.3390/s150306818https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4435151/http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9055© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license.The concept of the Internet of Things is rapidly becoming a reality, with many applications being deployed within industrial and consumer sectors. At the ‘thing’ level—devices and inter-device network communication—the core technical building blocks are generally the same as those found in wireless sensor network implementations. For the Internet of Things to continue growing, we need more plentiful resources for building intelligent devices and sensor networks. Unfortunately, current commercial devices, e.g., sensor nodes and network gateways, tend to be expensive and proprietary, which presents a barrier to entry and arguably slows down further development. There are, however, an increasing number of open embedded platforms available and also a wide selection of off-the-shelf components that can quickly and easily be built into device and network gateway solutions. The question is whether these solutions measure up to built-for-purpose devices. In the paper, we provide a comparison of existing built-for-purpose devices against open source devices. For comparison, we have also designed and rapidly prototyped a sensor node based on off-the-shelf components. We show that these devices compare favorably to built-for-purpose devices in terms of performance, power and cost. Using open platforms and off-the-shelf components would allow more developers to build intelligent devices and sensor networks, which could result in a better overall development ecosystem, lower barriers to entry and rapid growth in the number of IoT applications.enAttribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesInternet of ThingsIoTWireless sensor networksComputer scienceIndustrial networksMachine to machineSmart gridsArticleFisher, R., Ledwaba, L., Hancke, G., & Kruger, C. P. (2015). Open hardware: a role to play in wireless sensor networks?. http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9055Fisher, R, Lehlogonolo Ledwaba, GP Hancke, and Carel P Kruger "Open hardware: a role to play in wireless sensor networks?." (2015) http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9055Fisher R, Ledwaba L, Hancke G, Kruger CP. Open hardware: a role to play in wireless sensor networks?. 2015; http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9055.TY - Article AU - Fisher, R AU - Ledwaba, Lehlogonolo AU - Hancke, GP AU - Kruger, Carel P AB - The concept of the Internet of Things is rapidly becoming a reality, with many applications being deployed within industrial and consumer sectors. At the ‘thing’ level—devices and inter-device network communication—the core technical building blocks are generally the same as those found in wireless sensor network implementations. For the Internet of Things to continue growing, we need more plentiful resources for building intelligent devices and sensor networks. Unfortunately, current commercial devices, e.g., sensor nodes and network gateways, tend to be expensive and proprietary, which presents a barrier to entry and arguably slows down further development. There are, however, an increasing number of open embedded platforms available and also a wide selection of off-the-shelf components that can quickly and easily be built into device and network gateway solutions. The question is whether these solutions measure up to built-for-purpose devices. In the paper, we provide a comparison of existing built-for-purpose devices against open source devices. For comparison, we have also designed and rapidly prototyped a sensor node based on off-the-shelf components. We show that these devices compare favorably to built-for-purpose devices in terms of performance, power and cost. Using open platforms and off-the-shelf components would allow more developers to build intelligent devices and sensor networks, which could result in a better overall development ecosystem, lower barriers to entry and rapid growth in the number of IoT applications. DA - 2015-03 DB - ResearchSpace DP - CSIR KW - Internet of Things KW - IoT KW - Wireless sensor networks KW - Computer science KW - Industrial networks KW - Machine to machine KW - Smart grids LK - https://researchspace.csir.co.za PY - 2015 SM - 1424-8220 T1 - Open hardware: a role to play in wireless sensor networks? TI - Open hardware: a role to play in wireless sensor networks? UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10204/9055 ER -