Internet-of-things systems and methods

A method comprising:

• receiving, by a communication module from a data communication subsystem of an appliance, an appliance message that was transmitted from a component of the appliance through the data communication subsystem;
• determining, by the communication module, an initial identification of the appliance based on the appliance message;
• generating, by the communication module, appliance data based on the appliance message and the initial identification;
• transmitting, by the communication module to an Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform adapted to determine an identity of the appliance, the appliance data;
• receiving, by the IoT platform, the appliance data;
• determining, by the IoT platform, the identity of the appliance based on the appliance data using the initial identification to focus the determining of the identity;
• transmitting, by the IoT platform to the communication module, appliance-specific data based on the identity of the appliance;
• and
• receiving, by the communication module from the IoT platform, the appliance-specific data based on the identity of the appliance;
• wherein the communication module is capable of controlling the appliance as an IoT device only after, and not before, the receiving of the appliance-specific data.

A system comprising:

• a communication module adapted to:
• be communicatively coupled to an appliance that performs a function by transmitting appliance messages through a communication subsystem between components of the appliance,
• be communicatively coupled to a network,
• receive an appliance message, the appliance message being one of the appliance messages,
• transmit appliance data based on the appliance message through the network,
• receive appliance-specific data that depends on an identity of the appliance through the network,
• generate appliance commands based on the appliance-specific data, and
• control the function of the appliance by transmitting the appliance commands through the communication subsystem to the components of the appliance;
• and
• an Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform adapted to:
• be communicatively coupled to the network,
• receive the appliance data through the network from the communication module,
• determine the identity of the appliance based on the appliance data, and
• transmit the appliance-specific data through the network to the communication module;
• wherein:
• the appliance-specific data includes filtering data;
• the IoT platform is further adapted to select the filtering data based on the identity of the appliance;
• the communication module is further adapted to:
• store the filtering data in a non-transitory memory, filter subsequent appliance messages by applying the filtering data to the subsequent appliance messages to select a subset of the subsequent appliance messages, and transmit through the network to the IoT platform only second appliance data that is based on the subset of the subsequent appliance messages;
• the IoT platform is further adapted to:
• receive the second appliance data, generate a response to the second appliance data, and transmit the response through the network to the communication module;
• and
• the communication module is further adapted to generate the appliance commands based on the response.