Leveraging IoT Harmonization: An Efficacious NB-IoT Relay for Integrating 6LoWPAN Devices into Legacy IPv4 Networks

The burgeoning complexity and heterogeneity of IoT networks, coupled with their rapid growth, constant evolution, and new players, present significant challenges in terms of connectivity, interoperability, management, and usability. These networks, composed of a diverse array of devices, technologies and the like, demand innovative solutions to bridge the gaps between different IoT technologies and communication protocols. This article presents a simple, yet efficacious communication Relay to address one of these critical gaps. This Relay uses NB-IoT to ease the integration of 6LoWPAN-based IoT devices (IPv6) into the public legacy Internet (IPv4). This device translates 6LoWPAN, IPv6 CoAP messages into Internet-standard REST requests, so that appropriate handling of devices’ data be achieved in several stages. Thus, the Relay establishes two branches of communications: (i) the local network where the 6LoWPAN gateway is placed, and (ii) the public NB-IoT network. User interaction and data analysis are achieved by virtue of Home Assistant, where former 6LoWPAN devices are now discovered and shown as proper Home Assistant entities thanks to the Relay’s ease of integration into the open-source platform. This novel approach not only ensures efficient data and network management, but it also meets the urgent necessity for advanced solutions in enhancing actual IoT interconnectivity and monitoring. The unprecedented pace at which IoT devices, players and different networks have been proliferating in recent times is not compatible with countless manufacturer-dependent platforms, applications, and proprietary protocols that the IoT field has been leading with so far, almost from its beginnings.