What is IoT Living Platform?

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you understand the following concepts:

• What is IaaS?

• What is PaaS?

Positioning of IoT Living Platform

As IoT develops, the future of smart home living is becoming a reality. IoT Living Platform is a development and management platform for smart IoT devices that offers features for simplified development, easy testing, improved operations and maintenance (O&M), and convenient management.

You can connect your self-developed products to IoT Living Platform or use the platform's product solutions to develop smart IoT devices. This helps you contribute to the future of smart home living.

IoT Living Platform supports the following project types:

• Proprietary brand projects

  Users of this project type can use their own product solutions. They can use the SDKs and cloud resources provided by IoT Living Platform to develop smart IoT devices for their own brand. These devices connect to the platform's cloud services and use its smart features to enhance their brand image.

• Tmall Genie ecosystem projects

  Users of this project type can develop smart IoT devices that connect directly to the Tmall Genie IoT ecosystem. They can use the full set of smart services from Tmall Genie IoT within IoT Living Platform. For more information, see Relationship with Tmall Genie IoT.

Relationship with Tmall Genie IoT

In July 2020, Tmall Genie IoT Open Platform and Alibaba Cloud IoT Living Platform were integrated. The combined platform, IoT Living Platform, is now the unified IoT platform for consumer-grade smart devices within Alibaba Group. It supports the following two business models.

• Empowering the smart living industry as a cloud product. The platform provides global, intelligent, and paid cloud services to customers worldwide.

  IoT products developed as part of a proprietary brand project on IoT Living Platform can be sold globally. You can also develop a proprietary brand app to enhance your brand image.

• Providing device access for the Tmall Genie IoT ecosystem. The platform works with manufacturers in China to build an IoT ecosystem around Tmall Genie.

  Products connected to the Tmall Genie IoT ecosystem can be controlled by all Tmall Genie ecosystem terminals, such as Tmall Genie smart speakers of various models, the Tmall Genie app, and Tmall Genie for vehicles. This enables multi-modal interactions, including voice and touch, and provides consumers with features such as device control, status queries, broadcasting, scene-based automation, and proactive services. The Tmall Genie IoT ecosystem has connected with over 1,500 brands, more than 200 product categories, and over 7,000 product models.

The integrated platform uses unified standards for Thing Specification Language (TSL) models, device certificates, firmware development, and application development. The platform will continue to combine IoT technologies, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cloud services, with Tmall Genie's AI capabilities. These capabilities include Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Text-to-Speech (TTS) synthesis. This combination provides you with more advanced smart services.

Differences from IoT Platform

IoT Living Platform and IoT Platform are both cloud service platforms provided by Alibaba Cloud IoT. The key differences and use cases for each platform are as follows.

• IoT Platform provides fundamental device access capabilities. It is suitable for users with strong cloud development skills and can be used in various industries. For more information, see What is IoT Platform?.

• IoT Living Platform provides device access capabilities, mobile SDKs, and a no-code Cloud Intelligence App with a user-friendly interface. It is more suitable for developers of consumer-grade smart devices. The lower development barrier allows for the rapid development of smart consumer-grade devices, such as smart home appliances, wearables, and home improvement products.

Target users

• Module vendors

  The platform provides module porting guides to help you easily integrate with the IoT Living Platform SDK. For more information, see Wi-Fi module porting.

• Solution providers and device manufacturers

  The platform provides guidance on building smart devices, apps, and operations backends to help your devices connect to the IoT with ease.

Features

• For customers who need a rapid, low-barrier solution

  • Short development cycle

    You can configure a panel in 1 minute, enable smart features in 5 hours, and reach mass production in 10 days.

  • Low cost

    You can use certified modules that connect directly to the cloud and use SDKs for a quick start.

  • No-code development

    The platform provides the Cloud Intelligence App (formerly Public Edition App) with a no-code interface and a standard operations backend that supports statistical analysis with data charts.

• For customers who need high flexibility and deep customization

  • High availability

    The one-device-one-secret method protects personal privacy. The platform can support hundreds of millions of concurrent devices, which ensures connection quality.

  • Globalization

    Devices can be activated anywhere within the global service scope. This helps smart device manufacturers expand their business globally.

  • Brand independence

    You can use cloud APIs to independently develop your business logic.

Benefits

• Rapid Intelligence

  IoT Living Platform enables a rapid development process, from product creation to mass production.

• Low cost

  IoT Living Platform provides certified modules that can connect directly to the cloud. It also provides SDKs for a low-cost, quick start.

• No-code development

  IoT Living Platform provides the Cloud Intelligence App (formerly Public Edition App). Its no-code interface includes a standard operations backend with data charts.

• High availability (HA)

  IoT Living Platform uses a one-device-one-secret method to protect personal privacy. It can also support hundreds of millions of concurrent devices, which ensures connection quality.

• Private Label Integration

  The IoT Living Platform provides cloud APIs to support custom integration for proprietary brands, which enables flexible and independent business development.

• Global service support

  IoT Living Platform supports the use of devices worldwide. Alibaba Cloud provides the underlying global cloud services. In addition, IoT Living Platform supports multiple languages and integration with third-party platforms, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and IFTTT. For more information, see Global deployment.

For more information, see Benefits.