Ten-year battery life for "internet of things" devices

The internet of things has been much-hyped for years but has been held back by restrictive power consumption in connected devices, among other things. Now an industry standard looks set to address the issue of power-hungry connected widgets. Backed by ARM and Cable and Wireless Worldwide, the Weightless wireless standard is intended to become a global standard for machine-to-machine communications over a WAN. According to ARM, which hopes to provide the silicon platform for many connected devices, the technology being developed by the group will lead to a chipset costing under $2 with a range of up to 10km and battery life of ten years.