M2M, short for Machine to Machine communications, is something of an enigma for the majority of business executives today. Yet, M2M is becoming a major factor in the ability of market players to compete and is also bringing significant benefits to our personal lives.

M2M is often seen as an evolution of telemetry as it allows the remote measurement and reporting of information to a central location. The objective is to allow machines to interact with a company information system or an organization, without human intervention. The breadth of applications is wide and nearly unlimited!

The technologies used for M2M are the same as those typically used for wireless communications. While the cellular network and the Internet are preferred for long-range communications, Bluetooth , wi-fi and RFID are typically used for short to medium-range. Some of these existing technologies have been upgraded for industrial needs and new technologies such as Wavenis or Zigbee have also emerged to meet the requirements of certain M2M applications. Continue Reading »