Internet of Things Applications

Author and journalist Bruce Sterling reportedly once asked: “Why can’t I Google my shoes when I can’t find them?” Well Bruce, now you can. Not just any pair either, but your exact pair.

Some 10 billion products in the apparel, accessories and footwear market are currently being individually digitally connected, and the ability to locate items is just one of the benefits that will surface from the deal.

So what does that actually mean? Essentially our physical wares will come with digital applications accessible via our phones. We will indeed be able to find our shoes when we’ve lost them, but also do such things as figure out how to wash clothes properly, look for style tips on how to wear items, even search for how to buy a new version of the same piece. In fact, the limitations of what’s possible lie entirely in the hands of the brands whose products will now have such digital identities, and not the partners facilitating it.

“This is a big leap forward. From an IOT perspective it’s a major milestone. We’re talking about billions of apparel items having a digital capability, enabling a whole vertical industry to be able to act,” says Niall Murphy, CEO and co-founder of EVRYTHNG, who was inspired by that early Bruce Sterling quote. “We’re taking the manufacturing complexity out of the challenge list by pre-solving it for brands. No longer is it about how am I going to get my 500 million pairs of sneakers to have a digital capability, because it’s already there. Now it’s about what applications you’re going to create, and a focus on real end value for the user.”

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The internet is infiltrating all of our devices, from thermostats to stoves. Yet, the technology seems to be more popular in other countries than in the US.

The Koreans, Danish, and Swiss have more things tethered to the internet, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and search engine Shodan.

Still, IoT technology hasn’t gone mainstream. Changing behavior is difficult, and many technical issues like security need to be solved. But the OECD says that IoT devices can help governments make their operations more efficient, and transform transportation monitoring, eHealth, and energy.

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The Internet of Things (IoT) starts with your things—the things that matter most to your business. IoT is about making your things and your data come together in new ways. Tap into data. Uncover actionable intelligence. And modernize how you do business. Welcome to the Internet of your Things.

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Is the Internet of Things the world’s most confusing tech trend? On the one hand, we’re told it’s going to be epic, and soon – all predictions are either in tens of billions (of connected devices) and trillions (of dollars of economic value to be created). On the other hand, the dominant feeling expressed by end users (including at this year’s CES show, arguably the bellwether of the industry) is essentially “meh” – right now the IoT feels like an avalanche of new connected products, many of which seem to solve trivial, “first world” problems: expensive gadgets that resolutely fall in the “nice to have” category, rather than “must have”. And, for all the talk about a mega tech trend, things seem to be moving at the speed of molasses, with little discernible progress year on year.

Part of the problem is perhaps one of semantics. While gadgets are indeed part of the category (and quite often very large markets onto themselves), the Internet of Things (which we define as any “connected hardware” other than desktops, laptops and smartphones) is a much broader, and deeper, trend that cuts across both the consumer, enterprise and industrial spaces. Fundamentally, the Internet of Things is about the transformation of any physical object into a digital data product. Once you attach a sensor to it, a physical object (whether a tiny one like a pill that goes through your body, or a very large one like a plane or building) starts functioning a lot like any other digital product – it emits data about its usage, location and state; it can be tracked, controlled, personalized and upgraded remotely; and, when coupled with all the progress in Big Data and artificial intelligence, it can become intelligent, predictive, collaborative and in some cases autonomous. An entirely new way of interacting with our world is emerging. The importance of the IoT perhaps emerges more clearly when you think about it as the final chapter of “software eats the world”, where everything gets connected.

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I recently completely a deep dive on the Internet of Things (IoT) space for one of my Red Rocket clients, and I was blown away with what I learned.

If we think the consumer internet as we know it is a big deal, IoT will become an even bigger deal, over time. Gartner predicts the IoT industry to be $1.9TN in size by 2020, and McKinsey thinks it could be as large as $6.2TN by 2025, in terms of economic impact. Yes, trillion. Intel forecasted 15BN devices were already connected to the internet in 2015 alone. That’s a lot of demand for embedded smart modules, cloud computing, connectivity, data security, mobile apps and analytics reporting alone.

To be clear, when I talk about IoT, I am largely talking about devices connected to the internet (e.g., think a Nest thermostat), or Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technologies. IoT applications run across these primary sectors: Consumer, Commercial, Industrial, Buildings, and Government. And, get further segmented across these major industries: Retail, Transportation, Security/Safety, IT, Manufacturing, Automotive, Energy and Healthcare, to name a few. Research suggests Manufacturing and Healthcare are the largest two of these industries, in terms of potential and investment to date. From there, it drills down even further. For example, in the Security/Safety space, it splits out into Real Time Alerts, Asset Tracking, Fire Safety, Environmental Safety, Elderly/Child Protection, Power Protection, Supply Chain Visibility and beyond.

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Purportedly, the market opportunity for the Internet of things is gargantuan -- but development in the space clearly isn't paying off yet.

The Internet of things may be hot, hot, hot, according to the Valley, but it’s not paying the bills. In fact, less than 10 percent of IoT developers are making enough to support a reasonably sized team.

That’s one key takeaway from the latest VisionMobile Developer Economics report, released this week. It’s a sobering thought for the companies jumping into IoT as they chase IoT’s purported $11 trillion jackpot.

[ Get the scoop on the Internet of things at its most fundamental level and find out where it's headed, in InfoWorld's downloadable PDF and ePub. | Get a digest of the day's top tech stories in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. ] As with every other business, the only way companies will realize this value in terms of revenue will be to attack the IoT market with a clear idea of what they’re selling and to whom

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Formed by ex-Apple AAPL +0.68% engineers, Nest Labs develops products designed to bring Big Data and the Internet of Things into our homes via its smart thermostats, fire alarms and security cameras.

The company was bought out by Google GOOGL +1.94% last year for $3.2 billion, which sees its products as central to the inevitable drive towards “smart” homes with connected data systems designed to make our lives more comfortable, while simultaneously cutting down on wasted energy.

This is all possible because of Big Data and analytics – algorithms in the software used by the devices to monitor and record how they are used, building up a profile which allows them to intelligently “set” themselves.

It has proven to be a successful model and the products have sold well since the first Nest thermostat was released in 2011. Now with the launch of its latest products, the Nest Protect smoke alarm system and the Nest Cam home surveillance camera, it is hoping to save lives as well as make us safer.

Uploading and comparing the thermostat data from all of its users can glean accurate pictures of energy use across communities and the wider world. However when dealing with data as personal as information about your home, the importance of maintaining customers’ privacy cannot be understated. Nest’s General Manager for Europe, Lionel Paillet, explained to me how fundamental this is to the company’s operations.

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