Afero, Inc.

Erhard Riedl

Joe Britt

Kerry Quinn

Clif Liu

Lucas Finkelstein

A system and method are described for managing attributes in an IoT system. For example, one embodiment of a machine-readable medium comprises program code stored thereon which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform the operations of: specifying a plurality of attributes for a corresponding plurality of items of data managed in an Internet of Things (IoT) device and/or an IoT service; associating one or more ancillary attributes with one or more of the plurality of attributes, the ancillary attributes to specify attribute configurations and/or interdependencies between one or more of the plurality of attributes; evaluating the one or more ancillary attributes to ensure compliance with predefined constraints associated with the plurality of items of data; generating an indication of compliance if the one or more ancillary attributes are in compliance with the predefined constraints; and generating an indication of non-compliance if the one or more ancillary attributes are not in compliance with the predefined constraints.

System and method for managing and configuring attributes of internet of things (IoT) devices

A system and method are described for performing service-initiated updates to IoT devices. For example, one embodiment of a system comprises: a plurality of IoT devices, each IoT device comprising: a storage device to store attributes and/or program code; a processor to execute the program code using the attributes to perform one or more specified functions of the IoT device, and attribute/code management circuitry and/or logic to manage a current state of the attributes and/or program code; an Internet of Things (IoT) cloud service to be communicatively coupled to IoT devices over the Internet, the IoT cloud service including an update service to initiate updates of the attributes and/or program code stored on the plurality of IoT devices, an IoT device to transmit a notification to the update service upon reaching a particular initialization state, the notification including an indication of a current attribute and/or program code state; the update service to responsively determine whether an update to the current attribute and/or program code state is available and, if so, to use a first key to generate a signature over a binary which includes the update to the attribute and/or program code state to generate a signed binary; the update service to further store the signed binary in a designated network location and to generate or retrieve a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) identifying the network location, the update service to transmit an update command to the IoT device containing the URL; the attribute/code management circuitry and/or logic of the IoT device to interpret the URL to retrieve the signed binary, to use a second key to verify the signature, and to responsively update the attribute and/or program code in accordance with the binary.

System and method for service-initiated internet of things (IoT) device updates

System and method for managing and configuring attributes of internet of things (IOT) devices

A system and method are described for generating an interactive preview for an IoT device. For example, one embodiment of a system comprises: an Internet of Things (IoT) development application comprising a graphical user interface (GUI) through which a user is to specify a configuration for a new IoT device, the development application including a preview GUI component to allow a user to render a mobile UI preview on a mobile client; an IoT service including virtual device generation logic to generate a virtual device responsive to the configuration specified for the new IoT device, the virtual device comprising a virtualized representation of the new IoT device; and the virtual device to establish a communication channel with a mobile app executed on a client, the virtual device to dynamically communicate updates to the mobile app as the user makes changes to IoT device attributes and/or presentation definitions from the preview GUI.

Integrated development tool with preview functionality for an internet of things (IoT) system

A system and method are described for generating an interactive preview for an IoT device. For example, one embodiment of a method comprises: in response to initiating a preview of a new IoT device, determining whether a corresponding IoT device exists and, if not, then generating a virtual IoT device; associating the virtual or real IoT device with a set of device attributes and presentation definitions; establishing a communication channel with a mobile app; in response to detecting changes to the attributes and/or presentation definitions, transmitting updates to the mobile app, the mobile app dynamically updating the attributes and presentation definitions in real time.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Erhard Riedl