#IoT is going to be messy, very messy
Industrial manufacturers have had embedded chips in their products for many years. It’s just more obvious now that we’ve started calling it…
Industrial manufacturers have had embedded chips in their products for many years. It’s just more obvious now that we’ve started calling it the “Internet of Things”. Sure, some things have changed. The sensors are getting smarter and more cost effective and they are able to “call home to mama” via relatively cheap and ubiquitous networks. For the industrial crowd, the medical field, and agricultural-tech these advances are going to be a wonderful thing. For the average consumer, I am not so sure. There’ll be a ton of devices coming on the market, from the Apple Watch and other wearables to sensors in your washing machine, toaster oven, swimming pool, you name it.
Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?
No, Mister Bond, but I do see that you’ve been drinking a few too many Vodka Martinis.
The problem, as I see it, is two-fold. First off, the quality of many of these consumer-focused sensors are not going to be up to the quality of their industrial brethren. You ever try using an automated paper towl dispenser in an airport? I’ve torn rotator cuffs waving my arms frantically in hopes of getting a single square out of them. Many of these sensors just aren’t going to work reliably and that’s going to drive your average non-technical consumer stark raving mad. Second, we are just at the forefront of this movement and there are not a ton of standards in place for the consolidation of all of this data. Your toaster is likely going to have its own proprietary dashboard, your fridge a completely different dashboard, neither of which will connect to your Apple Watch or Android Tablet.
#IoT is going to be truly awesome for the average consumer sometime over the next 10 years, but we are a long, long way from Tipperary.