Orange and Deutsche Telekom are working together on a project that aims to demonstrate how smart home devices can be integrated through open source software and open standards.
The French operator has joined the Eclipse Foundation, an open source community that provides development platforms and frameworks for building software.
Both Orange and Deutsche Telekom will demonstrate how open source technology and standards can create a developer and consumer-friendly ecosystem at the Foundation’s EclipseCon this week, which will be held in Germany.
The two operators have defined a set of cloud APIs, based on the oneM2M standard, which will allow developers to build an application once and have it run across different environments.
Advantages of this approach include an extended reach for developers and the ability to save time and focus on developing new services, Orange said.
[Read more: Orange puts NB-IoT on ice as other tech bears fruit]
The demonstration will show how these cloud APIs can work across both Orange’s Datavenue big data and Deutsche Telekom’s Qivicon smart home platforms.
[Read more: Deutsche Telekom rolls out free smart home service to broadband customers]
Thibault de la Fresnaye, Orange VP of Smart Home Anticipation, said: “The service and device creation of the IoT ecosystem require[s] universal APIs to be shared by a core set of platform providers, open to a wide developer community.
“That’s why Orange launched this joint effort with Deutsche Telekom based on the Eclipse framework.”
Thomas Rockmann, VP Connected Home (Qivicon) Deutsche Telekom AG, added: “The cooperation with the Eclipse Foundation enables our open platform approach and it simplifies the integration of new smart home devices.
“Open systems and standards are a key element of our portfolio, and are an important driver for consumer satisfaction.
“Our project with Orange demonstrates our joint capabilities to expand use cases and devices, while continuing to deliver easy-to-use and interoperable devices.”