There are apps for that.

What was once a catchy marketing slogan now tends to evoke feelings of frustration and fear instead. Thanks to the Internet of Things, we are in the midst of a smart home revolution. Unfortunately, however, there is one problem.

No one has stopped to explain to IoT vendors why interoperability is so important. No, you don't need to spend 10 minutes registering for an account just to use a light bulb. Just because you can develop an app for your own product doesn't mean you should.

Thus we now live in a world where every brand of smart home device has its own companion software. The simple act of connecting a new coffeemaker, just to have a cup of coffee, requires us to wrestle with the instruction manual and set up a new smartphone app. This is not the future. [That's why earlier this year, leading smart home solution provider BroadLink introduced NoApp. This groundbreaking new technology allows new wireless smart home devices to be configured and online in less than a minute. How it works is simple. [Once powered on, each BroadLink NoApp device acts as its own wireless access point. Connect to the device via the network it is broadcasting over, enter your WiFi network details, and you are ready to go. Additionally, as part of this process, the new device can be connected to Amazon Alexa or Google Home and easily integrated into an existing smart home hub.

NoApp is currently available on BroadLink's fourth-generation smart devices. As co-founder and COO Jack Yao noted, other device manufacturers and retailers have also expressed interest in the technology. This means that at some point in the future, there could be a whole generation of smart devices that are virtually "plug and play" and fully controllable from the apps we already love to use.

That is a future we can all be excited about.

Learn more about Broadlink's products here.