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OpenRemote is an open-source Internet of Things platform that could help spur smarter homes and cities.

Open sesame: OpenRemotes software can connect and automate all kinds of devices. You can use its software to design a custom device controller.

If you buy several Internet-connected home gadgetssay, a smart thermostat, smart door lock, and smart window blindsyoull likely have to control each one with a separate app, meaning it exists in its own little silo.

Thats not how Elier Ramirez does it. In his home, an iPad app controls his lights, ceiling fans, and TV and stereo. Pressing a single button within the app can shut off all his lights and gadgets when he leaves.

Ramirez can tap a lamp in an image to turn an actual lamp off and on in his apartment, and at the same time hell see the picture on the tablets screen go dark or become illuminated. Ramirez also set up a presence-sensing feature that uses his cell phone to determine if hes home (it checks whether or not he has connected to his home Wi-Fi network). This can automatically turn on the lights if hes there. Ramirez runs the whole setup from a small computer in his home.

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The software behind all this interconnection comes from a company called OpenRemote, which is plugging away on an open-source software platform for linking Internet-connected gadgets, making it easier to control all kinds of smart home devices, regardless of who made them. And it makes it easy to automate actions like lowering your connected window blinds if the temperature sensed in your living room goes above 75 degrees.

Co-created in 2008 by Marc Fleury, who previously came up with the open-source Java application server JBoss, and Juha Lindfors, OpenRemote offers a way to control and automate all kinds of existing lights and home electronics without worrying about the various integration protocols in different gadgets or shelling out for a customized system. Thats because it supports a slew of different products and protocols, and continues to add support for more as they emerge. Best of all, the software is available to consumers for free.

Pierre Kil, who heads up business development for OpenRemote from Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, says the company eventually hopes to establish a common platform that manufacturers use to make all kinds of home-automation products simpler to set up and use, and to allow devices from different makers to work together smoothly.

When OpenRemote got started, the so-called Internet of Thingswherein traditionally offline devices are connected to the Internetwas largely unknown, and smartphones were just beginning to gain ground among consumers. It was the early days of the iPhone and of Android smartphones, and the iPad had yet to be released. At the time, home automation was expensive, requiring lots of proprietary hardware and installation time.

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Free Software Ties the Internet of Things Together