SURE Universal reaches performance benchmark for connecting IoT products
SURE Universal, a provider of smart home and internet of things software, is the first client to be software certified by the Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF).
OCF is an open-source standard for IoT products. It’s aim is to boost IoT interoperability, decrease time-to-market and enhance customer experience. The SURE platform offers universal remote control, cloud server for data and communications, IoT gateway software and smart appliance software.
“We are the only software certified by OCF right now. Our product allows to test interoperability between companies and their product,” explained Viktor Ariel, founder and CEO of SURE Universal. “For example, if you have a Samsung TV and you want software that works with a Samsung TV and LG refrigerator, you want to test that. We are the piece of software, basically a remote control, that is supposed to work both for Samsung and LG if they are OCF compliant.”
Customers are able to access SURE Universal’s software through the SURE Universal Remote app for the Android. The software is currently supported by Amazon’s Alexa AI assistant, and any wireless protocol, such as Bluetooth and Wifi. Future versions of SURE Universal Remote will be supported by Google and Apple Siri, making it the only smartphone application capable of controlling connected devices with voice commands.
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“We can work with all the products that have OCF compliance as certification. That way, OCF can test interoperability of all the products in our portfolio based on our software,” said Ariel. “Our benefit is, of course, we get introduced to all these companies, and offer them our product and services.”
SURE Universal is spearheading the partnership between hardware and appliance manufacturers. Currently, the company is working with some of the world’s biggest appliance manufacturers to apply OCF protocol and secure IoT interoperability among suppliers.
“We are OCF compliant, meaning we are based on the open source standard. It is a very attractive proposition to hardware vendors,” said Ariel. “We actually already started working with several large hardware companies, manufacturers, and we hope to have our product in the market in the next six months.”
Although there are several benefits to OCF certification, tech giants like Apple and Google have not joined. In a company statement announcing the SURE Universal certification, OCF said several major appliance manufacturers are expected to announce their OCF certification this year, with around 100 companies announcing certification next year.