Ten things you didn’t know about the Internet of Things
1. “50 billion connected devices” has already happened
Some say there will be 50 billion connected devices in 2025. It has already happened. Everything from cars and Barilla pasta to Nespresso capsules and Gillette razors are already connected and powered by IoT. Uber’s entire business model is built on an IoT platform. Your phone is probably part of tens or hundreds of IoT business models depending on how many apps you have installed.
2. Most devices will never be connected to the Internet
Unlike the previous “versions” of the Internet (content/people/mobile) that have been driven by standardization and certification, IoT is completely application driven. This has resulted in countless jungles of proprietary wireless techniques, protocols, platforms and applications that are tailored for various use cases but cannot talk to each other. Device communication outside your own IoT network is rare which is fine as there is generally no value in connecting your dog to a meeting room at the office or a fan system in a building to a car. IoT generally means Intranets of Things.
3. IoT Business Intelligence never gets better than the data you collect
Ok, you knew this already but it still needs to be highlighted. There are air quality sensors not capable of measuring data at a relevant resolution and energy meters that sit inside metal boxes in people’s basements without ability to get a wireless signal. If you cheat on radio front end, antenna design, network design, security or sensor quality it will bite back. Advice: Do not cheat.
4. You might already have access to the data you need
Example: A municipality could dig down hundreds of thousands of on-street parking sensors all over a city, or they could invest the money in a mobile payment platform like EasyPark that can provide the parking status via an API. No sensors, no hassle, just data, and at the same time they get rid of the parking ticket payment machines. The same applies for buildings, healthcare and a lot of other areas where sensor technology already exist. Before you roll out sensors or build a network, carefully consider if there is a smarter way of collecting the data.
5. IoT might be the next millennium bug
Pretty much every device is advertised with a maximum battery life time of ten years, and a lot of IoT systems are sold without lifecycle management support. Will all sensors we roll out today have been replaced by something else in ten years’ time or are we creating a new massive “millennium” bug when everything stops working in 2027? Many wireless networks will be gone ten years from now and sensor technology evolves all the time. It does not hurt to have a long-term plan.
6. A lot of sensors will soon be replaced by something else
The exponential technical evolution results in new technology reaching a lot of users faster than before, but also that technology gets outdated much quicker. VHS, CD and mp3 are good examples. Cameras and image recognition will replace a lot of sensor technology sooner than we think. As mentioned above, parking sensors can often be replaced by a software API. There are other concepts too, like synthetic sensors that potentially can replace a lot of legacy in-home sensors and at the same time increase security. Augmented Reality will replace many indoor positioning services where the aim is to find something. And on it goes.
7. The location of connected devices and sensors is more important than you expect
At a first glance, knowing the exact position/location of a device or sensor is only important if you are dealing with tracking/positioning of objects. However, if you automatically get the position of something it simplifies inventory, support and troubleshooting, and this can prove to be worth a lot for the TCO. Consider an activity based office where sensors with 5-10 years battery lifetime are spread out under tables, on trash bins and in meeting rooms. Will you refurnish, re-organize or move to another office during the coming five-ten years? Probably, and unless you are planning to arrange a massive “sensor hunt” for your staff, make sure you take measures. You get similar benefits when streetlights, parking sensors, water meters and other things report their position automatically.
8. IoT is about ecosystems. Be an attractive partner.
There are a lot of companies out there trying to figure out how they should be relevant in the IoT space. Many of them create own platforms, boxed solutions or develop own and very proprietary protocols. Most of them reinvent the wheel. A better approach is to stick to what they do best and refine that even further while joining ecosystems where their piece of the puzzle fits. Example: If your core business is to analyze a certain type of medical disease, do not employ backend coders to build a platform for this. Someone else has already spent 30 000 man hours to productify something that works. Instead, employ doctors and spend time with patients to build value in your algorithms.
9. Small scale is not the same as large scale
During 2018, tons of small-scale IoT Proof of Concepts (POCs) have been carried out all over the world. In many cases, some Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology such as LoRaWAN has been used as the bearer of sensor data. Many of these POCs will scale up during 2019 and onwards, and that is when new types of issues will arise. The LoRaWAN ecosystem is scattered. Narrowband IoT comes with battery constrains. The 868MHz frequency band is very small without any guaranteed sustainable future, especially in larger cities. Provisioning of devices, distribution of security keys and certificates, platforms and their price plans, quality of sensors, precision in sensor measurements and much more will be very different when scaled up.
10. Your biggest IoT challenge is not technical
The evolution curve of technology has surpassed the pace of human adaptation rate and the result is that legacy processes and procurement processes, laws, politics and poor business impact analysis block innovation. We all see this daily when we buy new technology that comes with a massive engine under the hood while the user experience still is an old bicycle. A tender process (from RFI to purchase order) can take several years, and when it is time to buy in to something it is already outdated technology. To get things going, do not focus on technology but business operations, people, needs and user experience and set measurable goals for your IoT projects.