Devicelink

Devicelink is a conceptual framework and software platform intended to enable interoperable communication among devices in the Internet of Things (IoT). It provides a common set of protocols, data models, and security mechanisms to connect sensors, actuators, gateways, and cloud services across different vendors and ecosystems.

The goal is seamless device discovery, secure authentication, standardized data exchange, event streaming, and remote management, regardless of manufacturer or protocol.

The architecture typically comprises device agents that expose capabilities; gateway or edge components for local processing; cloud services for data storage and analytics; and a governance layer for policy and lifecycle management. It uses extensible data schemas (such as JSON or CBOR), supports multiple transports (MQTT, AMQP, HTTP/REST), and provides software development kits for common programming languages.

Security emphasizes mutual authentication, encryption both in transit and at rest, device attestation, and fine-grained access control via standards such as OAuth 2.0 or mTLS.

Adoption has been limited and largely experimental, with open-source reference implementations and pilots in smart homes and industrial IoT demonstrations. It competes with established ecosystems and standards such as MQTT-SN, OPC UA, and Matter.

History and status: The concept emerged during IoT interoperability discussions in the late 2010s, with early proposals around 2020–2021 and subsequent prototypes. At present, Devicelink is described as a conceptual framework rather than a single standardized specification, with multiple groups proposing compatible extensions.

See also: Internet of Things, device interoperability, MQTT, OPC UA, Matter, CBOR, OAuth 2.0.