Wide adoption of the TALQ Smart City protocol

In 2012 the TALQ Consortium started to develop a global interface standard to connect and manage heterogeneous outdoor lighting systems from different hardware and software vendors. Five years later, in 2017, the Consortium decided to enlarge its scope and address the wider need for interoperability between Smart City Applications and IoT networks. After updating the TALQ Specification to version 2.0, based on a standard RESTful JSON approach in 2018, the TALQ integration into existing Central Management Systems and gateways from Outdoor Device Networks (ODN) became much easier and faster. At the same time, large tenders have started to require more interoperability with TALQ. As a result, more and more vendors are now considering supporting the TALQ Smart City Protocol and presenting their product for TALQ Certification.

TALQ certified CMS and gateway products

Cities want to invest in open systems with a high level of interoperability between software and network/hardware, to avoid being locked into proprietary systems. By requesting TALQ compliance in their tenders, cities and authorities can focus on user friendliness, richness of features and price when selecting a solution. The TALQ Consortium with its rigorous two-stage certification procedure: a Test Tool Software generating protocol reports followed by an assessment by an expert Certification Work Group, assures compatibility of all certified products. All products which successfully pass this procedure are listed as ‘certified products’ on the TALQ website. The TALQ website is the only official channel to verify TALQ-compatibility and provides additional information including detailed product names, version numbers and TALQ Specification Version.

The ten products, that passed the TALQ Certification for TALQ Version 2.1.0 in the July 2019 plug fest session are:

Central Management Software (CMS):

• CityLinx from BeeZeeLinx, France
• City Vision from Capelon, Sweden
• Smart Firefly from Uvax, Spain

Outdoor Device Network (ODN) / Gateway:

• Citybox from Bouygues, France
• Ki from Lucy Zodion, United Kingdom
• Owlet IoT from Schréder, Belgium
• Access Point System from Smartnodes, Belgium
• CA-13 from Uvax, Spain
• Trilliant TALQ Gateway from Trilliant, Canada
• Witti TALQ Gateway from Witti, France

“As these vendors come from different countries and all operate internationally, TALQ has proved to be established as the global protocol standard for the smart city market. This makes us proud.” adds Simon Dunkley, Secretary General, TALQ Consortium. “Several further certifications are underway, so it will be worth visiting our website more often in the future.”

TALQ, being an open industry consortium, gives all existing and new member companies access to the detailed TALQ Specification, supports them in integrating it into their own systems, and invites them to participate in the future development and updates of the TALQ protocol.