REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft has introduced the Lab of Things (LoT), which provides the infrastructure, software, and services to enable home automation research and development involving both custom-built and off-the-shelf sensors and devices.

LoT is a research device platform based on Microsoft Research’s HomeOS system. The company said the LoT allows virtually any type of device to be interconnected to the infrastructure. It boasts an open-driver model that lets the user write a driver in the event that a device is not supported. The user can also choose to share the new driver with the research community so others can benefit from your work.

The LoT also comes with a set of cloud services that support deployment of experiments at scale. One of the services is the LoT monitoring portal, which provides near real-time status of all the sites in your study. The update service allows you to configure your experiments so that you receive all of your field-study data in one convenient location in the cloud. It also facilitates on-the-fly updates to experiments, drivers, and any other component of the infrastructure, without having to visit the site physically.