Manage your Internet of Things Product

It’s not exactly a big secret that the IoT is shaking up the manufacturing world as we know it.  Before the IoT-age, product companies had no idea who their customers were unless they went to the trouble of filling out a warranty card or registering their product. And let’s be honest, that hardly ever happened.  Why?  Because the product still worked whether it was registered or not.  And often times, registering it didn’t offer customers any benefit.

The IoT changes all of that. One of the IoT’s key benefits of having a connected product is the ability to control it from anywhere, anytime. But being able to do that also entails device and user management. In order for a device to get online and work as intended, it, along with its users, need to be catalogued and permissions need to be granted — who can use this device?  how can they use it?  when can they use it?, etc. If the user permissioning process is not well-planned before devices are in the hands of users, manufacturers must carry the burden of granting users permission to control their devices in order to use them. This can cause a drain on resources and challenges when scaling the business.

The hIOTron team took on the challenge of making provisioning controls easier and we came up with very simple process of IoT device management.

Here, the manufacturer can store an entire database of device such Device MACID, NODEID [BLE or ZIGBEE], serial number, passcode next to the system and let users claim their own devices. With a simple passcode scan or by entering a serial number, the user can claim permissions without the manufacturer’s involvement.

Why is this important?  Consider, for example, a smart lock company manufactures a lock and sells to the end customer via dealer/distributor. Just think, how this process will happen?

Process will be very easy and start from dealer first, who will be maintaining the lock inventory [physically & virtually].

Let’s say if any dealer wants to buy locks from the manufacturer then he will just make online request with payment confirmation to manufacturer and then manufacturer will just assign the locks through admin portal to the dealer account for which dealer has paid money or requested.

Steps to Access Locks

Now, Lock is assigned to the dealer and dealer can see lock status whether lock is live or not under lock category in his account.

End user will buy the lock through dealer and then verify the ownership of the product during registering the product through mobile app or user dashboard.