In this assignment, the ground was laid for COMmeto's consumer appliance providing gateway services between IP and home automation networks.

The wide-ranging study looked for existing technologies to leverage in this niche market. IP enabled devices such as desktop PCs, PDAs and high-end audio-visual remote control devices connect to the gateway's HTTP server. Depending on the client's capabilities, a control application is then started on the client as an applet or in the web server. The web server runs a Java servlet container.

Other technologies that were studied extensively with a view to integration in the gateway included

• LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) for home automation directory services,
• JMX (Java Management Extension) for manageability of home automation devices, and its drivers, that can join and leave the home network dynamically,
• OSGi (Open Service Gateway initiative) for life cycle management of home automation services and their mutual isolation.

Particular attention was paid to the following security issues:

• Making the COMmeto gateway impervious to reverse engineering attacks.
• Controlling home devices across the hostile public Internet while avoiding spoofing attacks.

Reference: Ludo Cuypers