I am intrigued by the Internet of Things. The prospect of internet technology embedded everywhere and what kind of a world we will live in when that happens. Self driving car is on the top of my wish list! I recently attended the Internet of Things conference in Singapore and wanted to share with you what I had gathered on what we can expect to see as the IoT slowly emerges into the real world.
Bolt it on first
For any vision of the Internet of Things to become a reality, we need to IP enable many “things”. The presenter from Bosch told the audience that as a maker of “things”, they are IP enabling the “things” they make as fast as possible. However, far more “things” exist and are in service today that are not IP enabled. The reality is we will see IoT first from bolting on technology to things that are in service today. Imagine a hopefully not too big sensor strapped to a “thing”, visually inelegant but will get the remote data sensing and transmission going.
Collecting data is the easiest piece
Various speakers mentioned this. Data will not be the issue in IoT. Companies will be able to collect data and from many sources. One presenter raised the example of GE that already have decades worth of data from its turbine engines. Most company today already have access to some kind of data of their business. Making sense of the data, having the advanced analytics capability to turn the data into something meaningful and actionable will be what is important.
User experience as a key success factor
For the consumer centric applications, it is easy to understand the importance of a joyful experience. Its good to see this was raised in the B2B scenarios as well. Good user experience makes using any application easier and with user cases from emergency ward personnel to transportation, the people at the helm have no time to figure out what to do. The user experience has to be intuitive and make usage effortless.
Utility of data
There was also the important reminder that in many use cases in IoT (and here I think its more applicable to the B2B use cases rather than the consumer-centric ones), the data collected is most useful in a very short period of time. Beyond that time window, the data become less useful for decision making. Where the utility value is time sensitive, the ability to analyse and use the data in near real time becomes even more important. Common examples will be data on traffic or weather conditions.
Its complicated … and yes it cost money
Honesty. IP enabling things means buying and installing new equipment or buying new enabled “things”. To gain insights from multiple sources of data means investing in collecting data, storing data and new analytical capabilities. To get so many different types of “things” to transmit data and talk to one another means investing in many different types of infrastructure. Organizations will need to invest money before they can reap the benefits of IoT.
Playing well together
With the need for interoperability, common standards is a fundamental starting point. Here is where government and industry bodies have a role to play to set the rules of engagement. On a panel, a customer recounted his IoT project experience and expressed how challenging it was to get different players to play well together. Each player come to the project with a different perspective, control different sets of data and everyone has to discuss how to open up their walled gardens to collaborate. It’s a new way of doing things for a lot of companies.
Privacy and anonymity
I am glad this topic was brought up. Massive collection of data require stronger frameworks to protect the privacy of individuals and organizations. Who owns the data as it crosses so many hands, how is the data secured and how should it be managed. When is anonymity a good thing. To allow everyone to gain the expected benefits of an IoT world, people and companies need to see the tangible benefits of collecting their data and trust it will not be abused and used against them.
Well being beyond productivity
At the beginning of the conference, the presenter from IDA painted the first scenario of what an IoT world will be like – it was a use case of epilepsy sufferers being able to gather much richer data of what is triggering their attacks so as to better manage their condition. Another example that I came across was in wearable tech. Today drug companies bring trial patients together to check on their performance. With wearable tech, the patient’s condition can be transmitted to clinicians without the patients and their families having to travel to another city. The company saves millions in travel and accommodation but the patients are spared the discomfort of making these trips.
Within businesses and industries there will certainly be a lot of possible productivity gains but the technology optimist in me think the most exciting prospect of IoT is the well being it can bring to society and new benefits that we today may not yet realize. All pretty exciting.
Digital Optimist 