Contacting the Devices: A Review of Communication Protocols

When building an intelligent environment able to interact and assist people in a smooth and kind way, one of the practical issues to be considered is the communication technology that will connect the “brain” (intelligence) of the system with its “hands” (the different devices/actuators that the system will be equipped with). This paper reviews some of the currently available protocols, standards and technologies for such a purpose, comprehensively analyzing several key issues for comparative purposes. This comparative study supports inexperienced developers when deciding which technology best suits the requirements of the system to be deployed and what the costs of the licenses will approximately be.