It’s undeniable: 2014 was the year when the electronics industry decidedly and collectively moved forward to push the Internet of Things (IoT). In year 2015 IoT markets will continue to grow. I think we’re going to see some critical mass on corralling the IoT in 2015. IoT is a young market – no one seems to be clearly leading. Communications are the key here. Over the last 10 years the world has done a remarkably good job of connecting the global wireless world. The last decade has radically changed the way we live. The smartphone and its cousin, the tablet, was the final link to ubiquitous wireless coverage, globally. The fantasy of the IoT is quite grand: everything on the planet can be smart and communicate. The idea is both powerful and impractical.
IoT is entering peak of inflated expectations: The Internet of Things is at that stage when the efforts of various companies involved in it, along with research, are proving to have a lot of promise. At this stage, the Internet of Things should not have too many difficulties attracting developers and researchers into the fold. As we turn to 2015 and beyond, however, wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity. Tie the common threads of IoT and wearables together, and an unstoppable market movement emerges. There seems to be a lack of public appreciation of the extent to which the Internet of Things is going to fundamentally change how people interact with the world around them.
On the other hand, the Internet of Things is getting poised to enter the trough of disillusionment, which means that there is more room for failure now. There are issues of security, privacy, and sharing of information across vertical implementations that still need to be worked out. Until they are, the IoT will not be able to fulfill all its promises.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to grow significantly, as consumers, businesses, and governments recognize the benefit of connecting inert devices to the internet. The ‘Internet of Things’ Will Be The World’s Most Massive Device Market And Save Companies Billions Of Dollars in few years. BI Intelligence expects that the IoT will result in $1.7 trillion in value added to the global economy in 2019. This includes hardware, software, installation costs, management services, and economic value added from realized IoT efficiencies. The main benefit of growth in the IoT will be increased efficiency and lower costs: increased efficiency within the home, city, and workplace. The enterprise sector will lead the IoT, accounting for 46% of device shipments this year, but that share will decline as the government and home sectors gain momentum. I expect that home, government, and enterprise sectors use the IoT differently.
The IoT is only enabled because of two things: the ability of networks to reach countless nodes, and the availability of cost-effective embedded processors to attach to a multitude of devices. The prices for components and devices continues to decline while the skyrocketing global demand for 24/7 Internet access grows exponentially. The Internet of Things growth will benefit mostly from the autonomous machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity that will make up the bulk of the objects of the IoT. This is the main driver for double-digit growth across verticals in the electronics, and especially the semiconductor industry well into the next decade. The IoT will connect places, such as manufacturing platforms, energy grids, health-care facilities, transportation systems, retail outlets, sports and music venues, and countless other entities to the Internet.
Internet of Things can become Engineering for Everyone. The emergence of open-source development platforms, developed and maintained by dedicated volunteers, has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms. The availability of open-source software and, more recently, hardware targeting embedded applications means that access to high-quality engineering resources has never been greater. This has effectively raised the level of abstraction to a point where nonexperts can now use these platforms to turn their own abstract concepts into real products. With the potential to launch a successful commercial venture off the back of tinkering with some low-cost hardware in your spare time, it’s no wonder that open-source hardware is fuelling an entirely new movement. A new generation of manufacturer is embracing the open-source ethos and actually allowing customers to modify the product post-sale.
Exact size predictions for IoT market next few years vary greatly, but all of the firms making these predictions agree on one thing—it’s going to be very big.
In year 2014 very many chip vendors and sensor algorithm companies also jumped on the IoT bandwagon, in hopes of laying the groundwork for more useful and cost-effective IoT devices. Sensors, MCUs, and wireless connectivity are three obvious building blocks for IoT end-node devices. Wireless connectivity and software (algorithms) are the two most sought-after technologies. Brimming with excitement, and with Europe already ahead of the pack, a maturing semiconductor industry looks expectantly to the Internet of Things (IoT) for yet another facelift. The IC sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $57.7 billion in 2015.
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner as automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. By 2018, the market value of IoT subsystems in equipment and Internet-connected things is projected to reach $103.6 billion worldwide, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.0 percent from $39.8 billion in 2013.
BI Intelligence expects that by 2019 IoT market will be more than double the size of the smartphone, PC, tablet, connected car, and the wearable market combined. A new report by Yole Developpement pegs the market size in the $70 billion range by 2018, with the next five years presenting a golden opportunity for device makers as the IoT enters the growth stage. Device shipments will reach 6.7 billion in 2019 for a five-year CAGR of 61%.
Number of connected devices is expected to to reach 36 billion units by 2020, cautions that “all of this new market opportunity is under threat.” Other estimate according to market research firm Radiant Insights of San Francisco is that the number of Internet connections will grow from 9 billion devices in 2014 to 100 billion by 2020 (twice as many as the estimate from Cisco Systems Inc). IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020. Currently fragmented market, the number of cellular M2M connections could rise from 478 million today to 639 million in 2020.
By 2024, the report predicts that overall market value for components will exceed of $400 billion, of which more than 10% will come from hardware alone. Revenue from hardware sales will be only $50 billion or 8% of the total revenue from IoT-specific efforts, as software makers and infrastructure companies will earn the lion’s share. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large.
The growth of the IoT will present some very interesting issues in a variety of areas. You will see some very fast activity because unless it gets resolved there will be no IoT as it is envisioned.
General consensus is that the interconnect protocol of the IoT will be IP (Internet Protocol). As it stands today, the deployment of the billions of IoT objects can’t happen, simply because there just aren’t enough IP addresses with IPv4. While there is still some discussion about how to connect the IoT, most are in agreement that the IoT protocol will be IPv6. The first step will be to convert all proprietary networks to an IP-base. Then, the implementation of IPv6 can begin. Because direct interoperability between IPv4 and iPv6 protocols is not possible, this will add some some complications to the development, resulting in a bit of obfuscation to the transition for IPv6.
Is There Any Way to Avoid Standards Wars in the Emerging Internet of Things? I don’t see that possible. IoT will be in serious protocol war in 2015. There is a wide selection of protocols, but no clear set of winners at the moment. The real IoT standardization is just starting – There are currently few standards (or regulations) for what is needed to run an IoT device. There is no single standard for connecting devices on the Internet of Thing, instead are a handful of competing standards run by different coalitions of companies: The Thread Group (Qualcomm, The Linux Foundation, Microsoft, Panasonic), The Industrial Internet Consortium (Intel, Cisco, AT&T, IBM, Microsoft), Open Interconnect Consortium (Samsung, Intel, Dell), Physical Web (Google), AllSeen Alliance (Samsung, Intel, Dell) and huge number of smaller non-standardized protocols in use. Each of the standards vary how they do things.
Anyone who tries to build a physical layer and drive a software stack based on it all the way up to the application layer is a fool. But many companies try to do it this year. Today Zigbee is the most cost effective, but tomorrow WiFi will figure it out. On networking field in every few years there’s a new management protocol – what will happen in IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs.
Currently the IoT lacks a common set of standards and technologies that would allow for compatibility and ease-of-use. The IoT needs a set of open APIs and protocols that work with a variety of physical-layer networks. The IP and network layer should have nothing to do with the media. The fundamental issue here is that at the moment the Internet of Things will not have a standard set of open APIs for consumers. IoT, it will keep moving, and people will need open APIs. I suspect that at some point, after the first wave of the Internet of Things, open APIs and root access will become a selling point.
It is not just technical protocol details that are problem: One problem with IoT is that it is a vague definition. Do we simply mean ‘connected devices? Or something else? One of the main issues, which will only get worse as the IoT evolves, is how are we going to categorize all the different objects.
Early in 2015, the Industrial Internet Consortium plans to wrap up work on a broad reference architecture for the Internet of Things, ramp up three test beds, and start identifying gaps where new standards may be needed. The group, formed by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM, and Intel, now has about 115 members and aims to make it easier to build commercial IoT systems. The IIC hopes to finish a first draft of its reference architecture by the end of January and have it ratified by March. It will define functional areas and the technologies and standards for them, from sensors to data analytics and business applications. The framework includes versions for vertical markets including aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, smart cities, and transportation. A breakout section on security also is in the works. Hopefully the reference architecture could be used to help people construct industrial IoT systems quickly and easily.
With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attention. Smart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Even though the technology has been on the evolutionary fast track, integration has been slow. For car manufacturers, it is a little tricky to accept driverless cars because it disrupts their fundamental business model: Private resources will evolve to shared resources, centrally controlled, since autonomous vehicles can be controlled remotely.
Over the next few years, we’ll see a torrent of new devices emerge that are connected to the Internet and each other through a wide range of different wireless networking protocols. As a result, there’s a race on, not just to get those devices connected, but also to provide the network infrastructure necessary to managing all of them at scale. WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular networks are nowadays widely used, nut new alternatives are coming to solve applications were those technologies are not most suitable. There are different plans for wide area wireless networks that use licensed or unlicensed wireless bandwidth to transmit small amounts of data from various connected device – this could create its own connection to them in a cost effective manner without relying on existing cellular or WiFi networks.
Recently we have developed a pressing need, or desire to put our refrigerators, and everything we have access to while mobile, on the net, morphing the brave new world of the Internet of Things, into the Internet of Everything (IoE). And that will make that last 100 meters—that final frontier of interconnect—a reality. Today, only about 10% of the last 100 meter devices that will make up the IoT are connected. As the IoT evolves, other small cells such as businesses, city centers, malls, theaters, stadiums, event centers, and the like, will connect much of what they have on premise (soda or popcorn machines, vending machines, restaurants, parking garages, ticket kiosks, seat assignments, and a very long list of others). And, there are a very large number of devices that are short-range in all of these various cells. What was once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters.
Plenty of people and companies in the technology world tend to come at the Internet of Things by dwelling on the “Internet.” But what if, instead, we started with the “Things?” Knowing intimately what “things” are supposed to do and how they think and behave will be the key to solving one of the IoT’s most pressing issues: application layers. Over the past 18 months, the industry has launched numerous consortia, from Qualcomm’s AllSeen and Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium to Apple’s HomeKit and Google’s Thread. Every entity says it’s targeting the “interoperability” of things at home, but each is obviously concentrating primarily on its own interests, and making their “layer” specifications slightly different from those pursued by others.
It seems that no industry consortium is particularly interested in defining — in gory detail — the specific functions of, say, what a door lock is supposed to do. The library of commands for each function already exists, but someone, or some group, has to translate those already determined commands into an IP-friendly format. One of the standards organizations will take up the challenge in 2015. This will be the first step to “knock barriers down for IoT” in 2015.
Missing today in the IoT are reliability and robustness. Consumers expect their light switched and other gadgets to be infinitely reliable. In many today’s products we seem to be far from reliable and robust operation. Today’s routers can relay traffic between networks, but they have no idea how to translate what functions each device attached to them wants to do, and how to communicate that to other devices. The network needs to be able to discover who else is on the network. Devices connected to network need to be able to discover what resources are available and what new devices are being added. The network needs to be extensible.
Despite the oft-mocked naming scheme, the Internet of Things (IoT) has an incredibly practical goal: connecting classically “dumb” objects—toasters, doorknobs, light switches—to the Internet, thereby unlocking a world of potential. Imagine what it means to interact with your home the same way you would a website, accessing it without geographic restriction. But there is one missing piece of the smart home revolution: smart home operating system. So what will be the system that capitalizes on the smart home in the same way, the enabler of all the applications and actions we want our homes to run and do? There are no ready answers for that yet. And there might not be a singular, cohesive operating system for your home, that this stuff isn’t one-size-fits-all. It might be that the real potential for home automation lies not in local software running on a home device but in the cloud. I think that the cloud is going to be more important over time, but there will always be also need for some local functionality in case the connection to cloud is lost. Right now the Internet of Things is rather disjointed compared to Internet and computers.
When everything will be connected, how about security? In the path to IoT, the issue of data and device security looms large. Security for the ‘Internet of Things’ will be talked about very much in 2015 for a good reason. As Internet of Thigs becomes more and more used, it will be more hacked. Thus security of Internet of Things will be more and more talked about. Virtually anything connected to the Internet has the potential of being hacked, no matter how unlikely. Internet of Things devices often lack systematic protections against viruses or spam. Nowadays most security breaches are software-based, when an application can be compromised. Counter-measures for such attacks range from basic antivirus scanning software, to embedded hypervisors to hardware-bound secure applications tying their execution to uniquely identifiable hardware. There is emerging customer demand for silicon authentication. But the threats extend way beyond software and some hackers will put a lot of effort into compromising a system’s security at silicon-level. Individual devices can get hacked, but all systems should have some way of self-checking and redundancy. Those IoT systems can be very complex at device and system level. The problem with complexity is that you create more attack points and make it easier for hackers to find flaws.
Experts recommend far more layers of cyberprotection than manufacturers have thought necessary. Because many of the devices will often be practically inaccessible, the “patch and pray” strategy used for many desktop software packages is unlikely to be an effective strategy for many forms of IoT devices. Right now, there are hundreds of companies churning out “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices as fast as they can, without thinking too much on the security issues they can cause in the future. The imperative is clear: Do your homework on the specific security features of any IoT device you might consider bringing into the home. What steps are IoT companies taking to keep us safe from others online, and what constitutes a truly “safe” smart appliance?
What we’re opening up is a whole new subject not just of security but of safety. That safety depends on devices to be constantly connected to the Internet the same way they’re connected to the power grid. That’s a whole new area that deserves its own consideration. Keep in mind that IoT is one field where cyber security flaws can kill in the worst case. Connecting unrelated devices in the IoT means many more pieces now affect reliability and security. More devices are now considered critical, such as a connected baby monitor or a smart smoke detector, because wrong information can injure or kill people. The Internet of Things is coming no matter what happens. The people in charge of keeping the public safe and the industry healthy need to be ready.
The European Police Office (Europol) said governments are ill-equipped to counter the menace of “injury and possible deaths” spurred by hacking attacks on critical safety equipment. There are many potential dangers are in transportation: many new cars are Internet connected and potentially vulnerable, SCADA Systems in Railways Vulnerable to Attack and Airline bosses ignore cyber security concerns at their peril. With industrial control systems becoming network-connected, security risks rise and will need a long-term solution. In light of the trend toward the Industrial Internet of Things, development teams must start thinking hard about network security and planning for its long-term viability.
You have to accept the fact that at each point in the IoT there are vulnerabilities to malicious attacks and interception of vital information. Soon, almost every network will soon have some IoT-hacking in it. IDC predicts that in two years from 90 per cent of the global IT networks have met IoT data theft. In a report, cybersecurity firm Fortinet expects greater threats from “denial of service attacks on assembly line, factory, industrial control systems, and healthcare and building management…resulting in revenue losses and reputation damages for organizations globally.” This opens new doors of risks in the areas of corporate extortion, altering of corporate business operations, and the extension of cyberattacks to include physical threats of harm to civilians.
There are lessons to be learned to keep the cyber security in control in the IoT era. There will be lessons to be learned for all the parties of the IoT ecosystem. The companies that figure out how to make security available on multi-stakeholder platforms will be the most successful ones. Figuring out a secure platform is important, but having different levels of security is still important. Different uses have different bars. Security is a self-regulating system to some extent because it is supply and demand. That is the Holy Grail for technology right now, which is how to build systems with enough security—not 100% protection right now—from a unified platform point of view for multiple applications.
The data generated by the Internet of Things has the potential to reveal far more about users than any technology in history: These devices can make our lives much easier … The Internet of Things however, can also reveal intimate details about the doings and goings of their owners through the sensors they contain. As the Internet of Things grows to a projected 212 billion items by 2020, the question of regulation looms increasingly large. There is a lot of effort is going today at the government level. They’re not thinking about whether the Internet goes down. They’re worried about what happens if the Internet gets compromised.
When we have devices on the field, there is question how to analyze the data coming from them. This is easily a “big data” problem because of the huge amount of data that comes from very large number of sensors. Being able to monitor and use the data that comes from the Internet of Things is a huge potential challenge with different providers using different architectures and approaches, and different chip and equipment vendors teaming up in a range of different ways. Many large and smaller companies are active on the field: Intel, IBM, Lantronix+Google, Microchip+Amazon, Freescale+Oracle, Xively, Jasper, Keen.io, Eurotech, and many other.
The huge increase of data is coming. Radiant predicts that wireless sensor networks will be used to monitor and control very many domestic, urban, and industrial systems. This promises to produce an explosion of data, much of which will be discarded as users are overwhelmed by the volume. As a result, analysis of the data within the wireless sensor network will become necessary so that alerts and meaningful information are generated at the leaf nodes. This year has seen the software at the very highest point in the Internet of Things stack — analytics — becoming tightly coupled with the embedded devices at the edge of the network, leading to many different approaches and providers.
Integrating data from one IoT cloud to another will have it’s challenges. Automation services make big steps by cutting corners. Sites like IFTTT, Zapier, bip.io, CloudWork, and elastic.io allow users to connect applications with links that go beyond a simple synch. Check what is happening with integration and related services like IFTTT, ItDuzzit, Amazon Lambda. For example IFTTT is quietly becoming a smart home powerhouse.
Most important sources of information for this article:
With $16M In Funding, Helium Wants To Provide The Connective Tissue For The Internet Of Things
IFTTT, other automation services make big steps by cutting corners
Internet of Things: Engineering for Everyone
IoT in Protocol War, Says Startup – Zigbee fortunes dim in building control
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – Corralling the Internet of Things
What’s Holding Back The IoT – Device market opportunities will explode, but only after some fundamental changes
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Analysts Predict CES Hotspots – IoT, robots, 4K to dominate CES
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
Tech More: Mobile Internet of Things BI Intelligence Consumer Electronics – Most Massive Device Market
Wearables make hardware the new software
Zigbee Opens Umbrella 3.0 Spec
IoT Will Give ‘Embedded’ a Shot in the Arm - Connected cities to be largest IoT market
Chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015, says Gartner
Apps Layer: ’800lb Gorilla’ in IoT Nobody Talks About
Short-Range, Low-Power Sensors – once the last mile for connectivity is now the last 100 meters
The one problem the Internet of Things hasn’t solved
Plan Long Term for Industrial Internet Security
To Foil Cyberattacks, Connected Cars Need Overlapping Shields
IoT cybersecurity: is EDA ready to deliver?
More Things Are Critical Systems
Silicon, Security, and the Internet of Things
The missing piece of the smart home revolution
Hackers will soon be targeting your refrigerator
10 Reasons Why Analytics Are Vital to the Internet of Things
1,316 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ken Yeung / VentureBeat:
Samsung is adding SmartThing hubs to its 2016 HD TVs to control connected devices — Your next Samsung HD television could be a hub that ties all the connected devices in your home together. The Korea-based electronics manufacturer revealed today that its 2016 smart TV lineup …
Samsung is adding SmartThing hubs to its 2016 HD TVs to control connected devices
http://venturebeat.com/2015/12/29/samsung-is-adding-smartthing-hubs-in-its-2016-hd-tvs-to-control-connected-devices/
Your next Samsung HD television could be a hub that ties all the connected devices in your home together. The Korea-based electronics manufacturer revealed today that its 2016 smart TV lineup will contain SmartThings sensors, making it Internet of Things (IoT)-compatible.
The company will be enabling support for its SmartThings technology regionally, but hasn’t yet revealed where it’ll start. Presumably, it’s going to wait until the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next month to divulge that information.
Samsung acquired SmartThings in 2014 for around $200 million. Through the deal, SmartThings would be able to expand its platform, which allows users to connect, manage, and control their smart devices and IoT services. The integration with Samsung hardware is a significant step, especially with the lineup that it has across televisions, washers and dryers, refrigerators, phones, and more.
“With Samsung Smart TVs working with the SmartThings technology, we have an opportunity to reach millions of households,”
Should this work out as Samsung hopes — by turning your television into the hub for the entire home — you’re going to have all pertinent information routed through the largest screen you own.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensara Lifestyle System Enables Seniors to Live Independently at Home
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/sensara-lifestyle-system-enables-seniors-to-live-independently-at-home
Elderly people—our senior citizens—often want to live at home longer because that is the environment they are used to. In many cases, they can do so independently. However, if something happens, will they be able to alert someone and get the necessary help?
There is a new solution that utilizes the latest generation of sensors, communication and smart cloud technologies that addresses this need for at-home monitoring for seniors in need of help. The Sensara Senior Lifestyle System from GreenPeak is a new-generation Internet of Things (IoT) service application that can help people to live at home longer, secure and comfortable, and that provides peace of mind to seniors, their loved ones and their caretakers. This system does not use intrusive cameras or devices that people constantly need to wear on their body, making it seamlessly integrate into daily life.
The Sensara Senior Lifestyle System is comprised of a limited number of small sensors (five for apartments to eight for large houses) that are installed in the user’s home – a few motion sensors and a few open/close sensors. These sensors are installed at strategic places in the home—like the living room, bathroom, kitchen, hallway and front door—and they automatically connect wirelessly to a gateway that is plugged into a standard home internet router provided by their telephone or cable provider. The sensors in the system are not only small and battery operated, but they do not have to be worn, making them truly “install and forget.”
After installation, these sensors start to collect data about what happens in the house. This data is uploaded to an analytics engine in the cloud and, over a period of about two weeks, the analytics engine has enough data to be able to recognize living patterns of the person in the home—at what time someone gets up, how long the bathroom is used, with what repetition the kitchen is used, how long one is out of the house for shopping, when are they taking a nap, etc.
Once the data for behavioral patterns are collected, exceptions can be detected and analyzed—for example, minor exceptions like skipping a meal to major ones like not getting out of bed in the morning, or even suspicious inactivity in the afternoon.
More: http://issuu.com/eeweb/docs/12-2015_sensor_technologh_1_pages/5?e=7607911/31844293
Tomi Engdahl says:
1.8 V Digital Temperature Sensor
http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/microchip/1.8-v-digital-temperature-sensor/
The MCP9844 is a ±1ºC accurate, 1,8 V digital temperature sensor. This device converts temperature from -40°C and +125°C to a digital word. It meets JEDEC Specification JC42.4-TSE2004B1 mobile Platform Memory Module Thermal Sensor Component.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things Is Everywhere, But It Doesn’t Rule Yet
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/this-year-was-almost-the-year-of-the-internet-of-things/
In the future, everything will be connected. It won’t just be our phones that access the Internet; it will be our light bulbs, our front doors, our microwaves, our comforters, our blenders. You can call it the Internet of Things, The Internet of Everything, Universal Object Interaction, or your pick of buzzwords that begin with Smart. They all hold as inevitable that everything, everything will be connected, to each other and to the Internet. And that will change the world.
Juniper research predicted that by 2020, there will be 38.5 billion connected devices. IDC says it’ll be 20.9 billion. Gartner’s guess? Twenty-five billion. The numbers don’t matter, except that they’re huge. They all agree that most of those gadgets will be industrial—the Internet of Things is less about you changing the color of your lightbulb and more about companies large and small finding new ways of making their businesses, and your life, easier and more efficient. But the market for connecting the devices you use all day, every day, is about to be huge.
2015 was the year everyone talked about the Internet of Things. (So was 2014. And 2013.) But unlike before, it was the year everyone started making plans, laying groundwork, and building the infrastructure for the day when all our devices are connected. It wasn’t the year those devices took over our homes, but—don’t look now—there are suddenly Trojan horses everywhere.
Which brings us to the real dilemma the Internet of Things is facing as we come to the end of 2015: how the hell are all these things going to work together?
Right now, says Frank Gillett, a vice president and analyst at research firm Forrester, people mostly buy single products for a single purpose. “It works if you have a specific headache,” he says.
Our homes are going to get smarter. But it’s going to happen slowly, Gillett says, at the rate we’d upgrade our homes anyway. “None of us want to go out and do home renovations just to get a dang smart home,”
Our smart homes and connected worlds are going to happen one device, one bulb at a time, not in a single motion. But companies know they have to get you into their platform with that first device, or risk losing you forever to someone else’s closed ecosystem.
It’s possible some regulatory body will decide on a set of standards, or everybody will agree to support everybody else and redundancy will rule the day and redundancy will rule the day. Or, maybe more likely, there will be a breakout smart-home product that finally gives a single platform enough clout to force others to play nice. That hasn’t happened yet, and no one really knows what it’ll be
The technology is there. Connected light bulbs, connected tea kettles, connected fridges and fans and coffeemakers and cars—it’s all possible. It’s not perfect, but the parts are only going to continue to get better, smaller, and cheaper. So the question is no longer, is it possible to connect everything to the Internet? Yeah, it’s possible. The question now: How do we do it the right way? IoT companies need to set standards, pick both winners and losers, and come up with ways to make it easier for everyone to get on board.
In 2016, we’ll need to begin grappling with the security concerns these devices raise—having your Target account hacked is one thing, your car or home-security camera is another entirely.
Know this, though: it may be coming like a molasses tidal wave, but the Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. 2015 was about starting to sort out what these devices will look like, how they’ll work, how they’ll work together, and how we’ll make sure they don’t ruin everything. The tracks have been laid. Maybe it’ll be 2016, maybe the year after, but the train is coming. It’ll have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and probably eight other things, and you’ll definitely get a push notification when it gets here.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maybe this idea could work for IoT devices as well:
FC transponder teams with automotive SoCs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441071/NFC-transponder-teams-with-automotive-SoCs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151228&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20151228&elq=e6d655cc6c54449a9f9bd5f3fad40734&elqCampaignId=26296&elqaid=30047&elqat=1&elqTrackId=b23d5dd738c34e588f514a797590807c
A dynamic dual-interface NFC transponder from Texas Instruments, the RF430CL330H-Q1, is AEC-Q100-qualified for use in automotive infotainment systems. The NFC Tag Type 4 device enables simple secure pairing (SSP) using the Out of Band (OOB) association model for Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart, and WiFi between an NFC-enabled smart phone or tablet and an automotive infotainment system. Using the transponder, users can pair or execute NFC-enabled WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) with one tap to configure specific driver settings when entering the car, eliminating complicated manual procedures.
RF430CL330H-Q1 (ACTIVE)
Dynamic NFC interface transponder for automotive
http://www.ti.com/product/RF430CL330H-Q1?DCMP=epd-mcu-sec-rf430cl330hq1-wwe&HQS=epd-mcu-sec-rf430cl330hq1-pr-pf-rf430q1-wwe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Daniel Cooper / Engadget:
Samsung’s new Tizen-based TVs will have GAIA security with pin lock for credit card and other personal info, data encryption, built-in anti-malware system, more — Samsung says its new Tizen TVs will be harder to hack — Samsung has announced that its next generation of Tizen smart TVs will be a lot harder to crack than before.
Samsung says its new Tizen TVs will be harder to hack
After a year in which the weakness of smart TVs were exploited, Samsung goes on the offensive.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/30/samsung-tizen-tv-security/
Samsung has announced that its next generation of Tizen smart TVs will be a lot harder to crack than before. The firm has created Gaia, a security product for its 2016 range that promises to do for TV what Knox did for its smartphones. Some of the features promised include locking your credit card information with a smartphone-style pin, encrypting the data it sends out and a built-in anti-malware system. In addition, the TVs will ship with physical encryption chips to make it that much harder for others to access your microphone or, in some models, webcam.
Samsung’s betting big on the internet of things to help recover some of its lost profits, and wants the TV to sit at the heart of this strategy. It believes that people will want to activate their lights, heating and garage doors all from the comfort of their couch without having to take their eyes off The Big Bang Theory. If smart TVs get a reputation for being easy to hack, then Samsung’s models are hardly likely to be big sellers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Magic Mirror on the Wall, “Is Pi or ESP, Fairest of All?”
http://hackaday.com/2015/12/30/magic-mirror-on-the-wall-is-pi-or-esp-fairest-of-all/
“What’s the weather like, honey?” “I don’t know. Let me check the mirror.” The mirror?
Both [Dylan Pierce] and [Dani Eichorn] have mirror projects that display the weather. They took two different approaches which makes for an interesting comparison. [Dylan] uses a Rapsberry Pi with an actual monitor behind the mirror. [Dani] puts an OLED behind the mirror driven by a ESP8266. It appears there is more than one way to hack a mirror, or anything, which is what makes hacking fun.
ESP8266 WeatherStation with a Magic Mirror
http://blog.squix.ch/2015/12/esp8266-weatherstation-with-magic-mirror.html
A Raspberry Pi powered Magic Mirror
http://blog.dylanjpierce.com/raspberrypi/magicmirror/tutorial/2015/12/27/build-a-magic-mirror.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloudy With a Chance of Lock-In
http://jacquesmattheij.com/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-lock-in
lots of products that came to market in the recent past and that will come to market in the near future that use some kind of cloud hosted component. In many cases these products rightly use some kind of off-device service in order to provide you with features that would otherwise not be possible. Sometimes these features are so much part of the core product that the whole idea would be dead in the water without it.
But there are also many products for which it makes very little or even no sense at all to have a cloud based component. In many of these cases if you look a bit more closely at what is being sold you’ll realize that these are just instances of a business-model that was grafted on as an afterthought onto something that would have worked really well stand-alone but where the creators weren’t happy with a one-time fee from potential buyers.
The last couple of years have seen ever more blatant abuses of this kind of trick to the point where even the most close study of the applications has not been able to reveal a reason why the ‘cloud’ should even be a factor in the design of the product. Some examples: internet-of-things applications that come with a mandatory subscription to get your own data back, televisions that require you to sign up with an online service in order to be able to use the TV’s built in browser, navigation devices or apps that contain all the bits and pieces required to work except that they somehow also require you to sign up with a service before the device will function. The list is absolutely endless.
I hate these clouds-grafted-on devices and applications with a passion. There are only a few things more certain than death and taxes and one of those is that the device I own will outlive the required service component so sooner or later (and plenty of times sooner)
Software as a service to many people is the way to convert what used to be licensed software into a repeat revenue stream and in principle there is nothing wrong with that if done properly (Adobe almost gets it right). But if the internet connection is down and your software no longer works, if the data you painstakingly built up over years goes missing because a service dies or because your account gets terminated for no apparent reason and without any recourse you might come to the same conclusion that I came to: if it requires an online service and is not actually an online product I can do just fine without it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Urine-powered fuel cell socks: The must-have pair of socks this Christmas
The invention uses microbial fuel cells powered by the operator’s fresh urine.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/12/urine-powered-fuel-cell-socks-the-must-have-pair-of-socks-this-christmas/
The researchers from the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) have created a self-sufficient energy producing system in the form of a pair of socks with 24 miniaturised microbial fuel cells (MFCs). The cells are powered by fresh human urine pumped by the user’s footsteps, so you might still need to waggle your feet around once in a while.
In the experiment described in a paper published in the Bioinspiration and Biomimetics journal, the researchers managed to power a wireless transmitter with the energy produced by the socks, which sent a signal to a PC every two minutes.
“This work opens up possibilities of using waste for powering portable and wearable electronics,” said Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos who led the experiment. “For example, recent research shows it should be possible to develop a system based on wearable MFC technology to transmit a person’s coordinates in an emergency situation. At the same time this would indicate proof of life since the device will only work if the operator’s urine fuels the MFCs.”
KaaProject says:
interestingly written
google.co.uk says:
At this time it looks like WordPress is the preferred blogging platform available right now.
(from what I’ve read) Is that what you’re using on your blog?
Tomi Engdahl says:
I use WordPress.
IQ Genex says:
I do not comment, however after reading through a few of the responses here IoT
And, if you are writing on additional places, I’d like to follow anything
trends for 2015 |. I do have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.
Is it only me or do some of the remarks look like
they are coming from brain dead individuals?
new you have to post. Could you post a list of every one of
your social sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or
linkedin profile?
Tomi Engdahl says:
You can find links to those at http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/some/
Karishma Ahuja says:
IT will be serious about the Internet of Things
Many analysts have suspected Intel’s ability to develop effective devices’ Internet of things, but by now the processor giant has shown everyone else to be serious. The company introduced three new Quark processors and two different operating systems on IoT applications.
Intel’s processors are published by Quark SE system chip and D1000 and D2000 “microcontroll
IoT circuits need to be supported by the operating system and Intel’s Wind River Unit yesterday saw the launch of no less than two new operating system: Rocket Real time operation system (RTOS) for 32-bit microcontrollers and Pulsar Wind River Linux version that also supports 64-bit processors.
https://kaalpanik.in/IoT/#home
Karishma Ahuja says:
“What’s the weather like, honey?” “I don’t know. Let me check the mirror.” The mirror?
Both [Dylan Pierce] and [Dani Eichorn] have mirror projects that display the weather. They took two different approaches which makes for an interesting comparison. [Dylan] uses a Rapsberry Pi with an actual monitor behind the mirror. [Dani] puts an OLED behind the mirror driven by a ESP8266. It appears there is more than one way to hack a mirror, or anything, which is what makes hacking fun.
https://kaalpanik.in/IoT/#home