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Gartner Research predicts that the typical family home will contain as many as 500 networked devices by 2020. Similarly, Ericsson forecasts 50 billion connected “things” by the same date. Reaching these lofty projections over the next four years, however, will require a fundamental reorientation in the way that technologists and product designers work together to create successful “connected” personal devices and home appliance products. This evolution to “Internet of Things (IoT) 2.0” will be difficult for many companies to achieve — not for lack of technological expertise but because they’ll fail to recognize the value of design in connected product development.
Machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity — the forerunner of consumer-focused IoT — has been around for decades. Overwhelmingly, those IoT 1.0 applications pushed technology to address B2B market requirements.
Product design considerations in the IoT 1.0 world are not critical to persuading customers to adopt offerings. Enterprise IoT buyers seldom require great design, because most often the buyer is not the product’s end user. Fleet logistics companies, for example, monitor the condition and location of their vehicles. Their developers focus on meeting operational and environmental requirements, caring little about the physical appearance or user experience of a dashboard- or engine-compartment-mounted device that monitors vehicle data....
Two months after Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) announced a platform to connect appliances to the internet, Amazon Web Services’ Internet of Things is out of beta and available to customers.
The platform – similar to offerings from Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and IBM – can command smoke alarms and fitness trackers from computers.
Moreover, it extends far beyond the home; it can monitor and manage critical infrastructure such as wastewater treatment facilities and wind turbines.
The Internet of Things, as it is known, is big industry for tech companies working to connect devices to the cloud. Microsoft – which estimates there will be 30 billion connected devices by 2020 – launched in the space last year with its Azure platform. Google-owned home automation company Nest, which makes smart thermostats and other connect devices, announced earlier this year plans to open a Seattle-area engineering center and hire 100 employees....
Nuance, the company responsible for the speech recognition softwareDragon, is announcing Nuance Mix, a developer platform that will allow anyone to add natural language detection to an app.
The aim of Nuance Mix is the Internet of Things. It has the same technology that powers other Nuance products, and comes with voice recognition and text-to-speech tools. Developers can even create custom voice models that can be dedicated for defined tasks....
In an attempt to modernize the retail experience for sellers, four Nest alums are launching b8ta, a software-driven brick-and-mortar store in Palo Alto, to sell Internet of Things gadgets and products on Friday. The entire b8ta experience is technology-driven — from the way companies get their products into b8ta to the way customers interact with the products.
With b8ta, the goal is to get innovative products like the Gi Flybike, a folding electric bicycle, and Thync, a wearable for achieving mindfulness and boosting energy, into physical stores and enable customers to have real, tactile experiences with them....
The US smart home market has yet to take off. Quirky's recent announcement that it was filing chapter 11 bankruptcy — and selling off its smart home business, Wink — highlights this well.
At its current state, we believe the smart home market is stuck in the 'chasm' of the technology adoption curve, in which it is struggling to surpass the early-adopter phase and move to the mass-market phase of adoption.
There are many barriers preventing mass-market smart home adoption: high device prices, limited consumer demand and long device replacement cycles. However, the largest barrier is the technological fragmentation of the smart home ecosystem, in which consumers need multiple networking devices, apps and more to build and run their smart home....
We know the Internet of Things is big and going to be massive in scope, impacting all aspects of marketing and communication.
Some recent data points from some of the very large companies fueling the growth yet again highlight just how big a deal this is.
Within five years, 200 billion so-called smart objects will be deployed, according to Intel’s latest guide to all things IoT. That translates to 26 smart objects for every human being on earth....
The internet has changed so much it can’t be quantified in a single word or even on a few levels. It changed education, business, telecommunications, correspondence, and interpersonal relationships.
You can now have a virtual phone system that doesn’t require wires and cables. Businesses are saving a bundle on moving their phone systems from the old PBX model to a virtual model that allows you to carry your phone number with you whether you’re using a phone, a tablet or even a landline. PBX providers like Switch have advantages over a land based phone system for its greater flexibility and low cost.
But the IoT doesn’t stop at phone systems, it is letting your refrigerator order your food, it lets your phone control your lights, your locks and a myriad of other things that you own. Between hardware and software, the IoT is projected to become the largest device market in the world. It will surpass mobile phones, tablets and cars. Between hardware, software, installation and management services, the IoT is expected to add US$1.7-trillion into the global economy....
Awareness of the Internet of Things is gaining a bit of traction, at least in some quarters.
There is now high IoT awareness in more than half (56%) of those in the retail industry, according to a new survey.
Overall, a majority (73%) of companies have deployed, or plan to deploy over the next 12 months, some types of IoT solutions, according to the 2,500-person, 15-country survey by IDC.
More than half (58%) say they consider IoT to be a strategic initiative....
People don’t want connected watches and glasses as much as they would want their bodies online, a new study suggests.
The study was carried out by Element14, a distributor of technology products and solutions for electronic system design, maintenance and repair. Named ‘Engineering a connected world,’ the study asked 3,500 adults living in Australia, Asia, Europe and North America how the connected devices of the future will impact the way we interact with the world around us.
This report uncovers consumer attitudes towards the current and future direction of the Internet of Things, highlighting the areas of our lives where people believe technology and innovation should be focused, the report says, adding that the technology should be focused on healthcare, renewable energy and the environment....
Are you curious why everyone is talking about the Internet of everything? Cisco CEO John Chambers gives 19 trillion really good reasons.
Chambers believes the Internet of everything, also known as the Internet of things, will create $19 trillion (yes, that's with a "t") in economic benefit and value over the next decade.
The Internet of things is the concept that any device that could use an Internet connection should get one, allowing it to talk with other devices on the network. It's widely believed to be the next catalyst for innovation in the tech world, with seemingly every major player looking at ways to connect more products together....
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The Internet of Things and the Internet might seem inextricably linked, but, increasingly, there are questions centered around how IoT devices should work with one another — and what happens when the Internet connection goes down?
Users also are concerned with the privacy implications of having their data stored on a corporation’s servers, and they don’t like having an Internet connection as a potential point of failure. These reactions are rational, but reminiscent of online shopping circa 2000, which, ironically, might now be more secure than shopping in physical retail stores.
To understand why device makers are relying on an Internet connection and cloud services, we need to look at how our IoT devices work. We need to understand data sources, processing, device to device communication and, ultimately, how one device can leverage another device....
But since we’re nearing the year end, there are many (and I mean many) predictions of what will happen next year that have been sent to me over the last several weeks.
These are not necessarily based on new research, but rather are the viewpoints of a person or organization self-perceived to be in a position to make some educated guesses.
I’ve aggregated some of these predictions to give you at least an IoT snapshot of what some see in store for the next year.
So here are IoT-related predictions for 2016, in no particular order, with the source of each prediction at the end....
Forecasts for the future number of connected wearable devices continue to top each other, and the latest report continues that trend.
Shipments of connected wearables reached 73 million this year, according to a new study by Berg Insight.
But that’s nothing compared to what’s coming. By 2020, there will be 228 million connected wearables shipped, according to Berg....
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a phenomenon and an entity. It refers to the way Internet connectivity has expanded to include everyday objects and to how those everyday objects interoperate with our daily lives.
No longer do we “access” the Internet. The Internet is ever-present. It operates as an automated entity that can carry out functions that reflect and affect the physical world. We conduct business, live our lives, and dictate our affairs in its presence and based on its rules. Anything from your refrigerator to your key fob could be connected.
Forbes contributor Jacob Morgan wrote,
"If it has an on and off switch then chances are it can be a part of the IoT."
Increasingly, however, IoT devices may not even have an on/off switch.
In the wake of this ubiquity, massive implications exist for policy, safety, government, regulation, privacy, provision, and technology....
The wearable computing industry has seen important activity this year on the public markets side. In March, Apple’s smartwatch was released, with some estimates pegging the device’s sales at 20% of all wearables units sold globally in Q2’15. In June, fitness band maker Fitbit went public at a valuation of $4.1B.
Despite these high-profile events, the funding climate for still-private companies in the wearable computing space has cooled off. Dollars invested in wearable technologies in 2015 are on track to hit $276M at the current run-rate, a drop of 72% compared to 2014′s total, according to CB Insights data, and the lowest annual funding total since 2010.
Meanwhile, deals are likely to finish the year at close to 50, down ~15% from 2014 numbers....
The future of wearables isn't just devices on your body. It's also sensors that you put inside your body to learn more about your health and interact with smart devices in your home.
Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman, speaking Wednesday at the Code Mobile conference in Half Moon Bay, said Jawbone has invested a lot of time and money into developing sensors. And the fitness wearable maker has looked at sensors you'd swallow or implant -- like something that would stay in your bloodstream to monitor your circulation and other factors -- for use in certain scenarios....
Among many other things, connected objects will allow consumers to buy things more easily.
The Amazon Dash button introduced several months back is a good example of at least the start of this.
The highly publicized buttons can be mounted pretty much anywhere, such as on a washing machine or near a coffee maker to remind a consumer to re-order supplies while in the context of using the particular device or appliance.
Somewhere between 300,000 and a half million of the buttons have been shipped since Amazon started sending them to Amazon Prime service members, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who sees them heading into the millions going forward....
While many have speculated positively on the value of the Internet of Things, a report from the McKinsey Global Institute projects an even more hopeful future for the catchall term for connected devices than previously predicted, especially in regards to local retail.
The report covers the full extent of IoT’s potential, projecting anywhere from $3.9 to an astounding $11.1 trillion dollar global economic impact by 2025. Of that, roughly $410 billion to $1.2 trillion will impact the retail industry and how local businesses and services interact with their customers
.Automated checkout systems alone could add up to $380 billion in potential value but combined with the many other retail uses of IoT, McKinsey believes the value could be anywhere from $410 billion to $1.2 trillion by 2025....
The IoT promises to add intelligence to everything from commonplace consumer items such as cars, light bulbs, and refrigerators, to industrial items such as machinery, railroad ties, and agricultural fields. Those “things” can collect and broadcast data across networks, enabling the data to be analyzed to add more value.
Consumer and industrial products will be valued increasingly not just for their standalone functionality, but also for how well they work within the digital ecosystem.In the consumer realm, companies’ marketing success will depend on their ability to connect with, and creatively exploit, the interdependent network of apps, devices, and services....
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Better design would lead to better Internet of things products and higher consumer adoption write Scott Nelson and Paul Metaxatos in the Harvard Business Review.