Overview
ISO/IEC 20924:2021 - "Internet of Things (IoT) - Vocabulary" is an international standard that provides a formal glossary and a terminology foundation for the IoT domain. The 2021 second edition updates and expands the first edition (2018) and supplies consistent, consensus-based definitions for general IT and IoT‑specific concepts such as IoT, IoT device, data store, interoperability, wearable device, actuator, and trustworthiness. This edition also documents editorial changes in a redline version and notes that there are no normative references in the document.
Key topics
The standard defines and clarifies core technical concepts and relationships used across IoT standards and implementations:
- Core definitions: clear meanings for terms such as data, information, entity, identifier, endpoint, interface, service, and stakeholder.
- IoT-specific terms: formal definitions for Internet of Things (IoT), IoT device, IoT conceptual model, IoT domain, digital user, virtual entity, wearable device, actuator, and data acquisition functional system.
- Quality and governance concepts: definitions for interoperability, availability, confidentiality, safety, and trustworthiness (including constituent characteristics like reliability, resilience and accountability).
- Data and system elements: terminology for data store, discovery service, cloud service/provider, functional component and reference architecture.
- Edition updates: adds new terms (e.g., safety, wearable device, transport interoperability, data acquisition functional system) and updates existing definitions (e.g., data, data store, discovery service) to align with current IoT usage.
Keywords: ISO/IEC 20924:2021, IoT vocabulary, IoT glossary, IoT terminology, interoperability, wearable device.
Applications
ISO/IEC 20924:2021 is primarily a terminology resource that supports consistency across technical work and documentation. Typical practical uses:
- Developing IoT architectures and reference models where precise, shared vocabulary is critical.
- Writing or harmonizing technical standards, specifications and procurement documents to avoid ambiguity.
- Product design and requirements engineering (manufacturers, platform providers, system integrators).
- Interoperability testing, conformity assessment, regulatory guidance and safety analyses.
- Education, training and technical publications to ensure consistent IoT terminology across teams and regions.
Target users include standards developers, systems architects, IoT engineers, product managers, procurement specialists, regulators and educators.
Related standards
ISO/IEC 20924:2021 is intended to harmonize with other ISO/IEC and IEC work. Relevant references cited or used as sources in the vocabulary include:
- ISO/IEC 17788 / 17789 (cloud and cloud computing concepts)
- ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 (architecture descriptions)
- ISO/IEC 27000 (information security concepts)
- IEC Electropedia and ISO Online Browsing Platform for terminological resources
Using ISO/IEC 20924 helps teams maintain consistent, searchable and SEO‑friendly terminology across documentation, policies and technical assets in IoT projects.
