What puts you off about IoT Services?

This isn't a 'what puts you off' response, but more of a 'gotcha', is that some services are not mature, and can take more messing around than desired.

Right now, nothing is putting me off it, because there are problems I cannot solve without it. I want to develop a monitoring solution for air conditioners (HVAC) in business premises - there's no way I intend to run my own server. It doesn't make sense, that problem (and security) was solved with cloud computing 10 years ago - it's why we all use it today whether we like it or not, each time we connect to any service to get work done.

This isn't a 'what puts you off' response, but more of a 'gotcha', is that some services are not mature, and can take more messing around than desired.

Right now, nothing is putting me off it, because there are problems I cannot solve without it. I want to develop a monitoring solution for air conditioners (HVAC) in business premises - there's no way I intend to run my own server. It doesn't make sense, that problem (and security) was solved with cloud computing 10 years ago - it's why we all use it today whether we like it or not, each time we connect to any service to get work done.

Shabaz, your HVAC monitoring solution would make a great case study.

In my view there are two actually elements to this. Firstly, there is the monitoring of course, which involves collecting data and the second is control, which involves intervention to say change operating mode or even change firmware.

If any of these requirements don't need to be outside the locality (i.e.local area network) then the cost of supplying hardware and software is so low these days and pretty reliable that I cannot see the requirement for pushing this application out to a cloud. However, as soon as you require any element of that application to be able to communicate with the outside world (even if it's dispatching an email) then I would argue that a cloud service, based on today's technology, is the more secure (and arguably the better value) option assuming no lock in and other contractual constraints. Technically, I know there are other options around such as secure tunnelling etc. but would argue that not suited in all cases.

So, the question, I think is being asked is whether you then buy an all-inclusive service for this purpose or build yourself on a platform of your choice. This is of course is not really a generic question as will depend on technical skill of individuals involved and the balance between development time and cost to get to the end result.

Hi Colin,

You're right, this is beyond the local area so that made it much easier to decide. I'm thinking to offer it as a service, to permanently install in different sites, and then use the data to make improvements (initially manually with no electronic control, just sensors). Today very ancient logger designs (with no connectivity) are used for some measurements or troubleshooting, or to visit and take measurements at different times of the day, so it would be nice to reduce that. There are some existing offerings, I just think it's an area where there's some opportunity regardless. Your comments regarding security and value aspects of the cloud approach sound right to me too.