18 September, 2004: The new DECT Open Data Access Profile (ODAP) specification (TS 102 342) recently published by ETSI allows the creation of an accessories market for alarms, sensors and similar devices, which can be connected through a DECT base station to users and/or servers in either a home or industrial environment. This enables home applications such as automatic voice calling or messaging when a fire or smoke alarm goes off, as well as, remote control for home appliances...and this is just a start. In an industrial environment, sensors can be monitored reliably using the protected DECT frequency band and the DECT Dynamic Channel Selection (DCS) mechanism - the best known vaccine against interference and for ensuring high communication capacity.

The ODAP specifies a GAP (Generic Access Profile) based packet Cordless Multimedia Communication End System (ES) that allows distributing the burden of the data applications and transport protocols between the DECT Portable Part (PP) and the DECT Fixed Part (FP) with the aim of putting the complexity into the FP and reducing the complexity, and hence reducing the cost of the Portable Parts.

ODAP provides a generic low-rate messaging encapsulation transport mechanism over the DECT GAP air interface capable of satisfying the needs of various types of devices, e.g. industrial and household sensors, alarms, machines (M2M), surveillance cameras, etc.

As some accessories are likely to be battery powered, a new DECT sleep mode has been specified to lengthen battery life.

"ODAP changes very little in the GAP protocols stack; it adds to it allowing for developers to reuse their work. The well defined various interfaces, the utilisation of commonly used protocols, e.g. HTTP, and the separation of tasks will shorten the development time and allow third parties' development to be easily incorporated into existing ones", said the Leader of ETSI Special Task Force 262 - Stoyan Baev (ComSquare).

Using DECT in various applications and giving a 'voice' to machines is not new - some products targeting this area have been around for years. What the new ODAP standard adds are comprehensive, unified requirements and interoperability. For example, a DECT ODAP fire alarm from manufacturer 'A' could be used with a DECT ODAP enabled base station from manufacturer 'B' to convey an indication to the user locally or remotely.