Steve Wozniak Believes The Internet of Things Bubble Could Burst

I agree that it's likely to lose focus. A lot of people just don't want or need arbitrary devices connecting to the internet, plus it hasn't really gotten into the consumer space in a major way as yet; still remaining in the domain of electronics enthusiasts.

When I see IoT now, rather than think of seeing devices connected to the internet I'm more and more seeing it as a way of describing a 'smart' device which probably has more appeal and chance of success. Smart devices can increase functionality of a basic device but doesn't necessarily have to be connected to the internet.

Lucie

Hi Lucie,

You're right, and a lot of people automatically think IoT = consumer IoT. Yet in other industries, IoT clearly already has significant value today, a proof-point being that people have put a lot of money on the table for massive deployments - for example multiple millions of nodes deployments are real in the smart meter space. Systems are being developed to handle tens of millions to billions of devices. Eventually that technology could be useful for the killer-apps for consumers as they get invented, but we won't get there quickly without the enthusiasts (which many of us are hopefully) coming up with ideas and innovating..

EDIT:

Also another thing which is interesting is that many people assume that an Internet connected device is accessible by everyone, but secure VPNs over the Internet are real too, and are trusted by financial orgs, banks etc and other businesses too.

In the IoT space we need ways to securely deploy these, manage and configure them in huge quantities for massive deployments, but these are problems being solved in many solutions out there too. There are plenty of 'wild west' IoT type solutions out there too, which should be avoided - we can do some things like help others by pointing out the flaws - e.g. for the bad kickstarter projects out there : )

I would agree and probably go as far as to say that industrial/commercial IOT has much much more scope than IOT in the home.

The home is less regular more complex  more expensive to design for and generally lower value solutions so I'm sure the industrial stuff will come out first and be successful. The home stuff is really a way of describing what IOT is about to Joe public who understands much more about counting the number of strawberries in the fridge than an industrial process. It doesn't mean that strawberry counting is the Killer App for IOT

Hi John,

Also, not every industrial/commercial customer will make a public announcement, so some deployments won't be reported. Some of the 'things' in IoT that have been already deployed have been oil wells, for better information gathering from oil fields, so each deployed node for an oil company could potentially have huge revenue impact whether that is through better efficiency, reliability or more useful or more timely data collected might not be reported.

As engineers, there are other benefits for us - IoT empowers us as engineers - we all have access to cloud platforms, low-cost processors and sensors, easy prototyping tools and it is very impressive that a (relatively) tiny handful of components can become part of cost-effective, reliable IoT solutions if the solution is engineered with reliability, redundancy etc. The low part count and low cost makes it much easier for us to have an impact with our prototyped ideas too. The change has been so quick - just looking at wireless alone, it would still be a major project to build (say) a decent superhet broadcast receiver, but a digital radio for data can now be built with perhaps a dozen components and no adjustments at all.

And we have easy ways to build and test our experimental or real solutions using DSL or 4G/LTE, plenty of cloud platforms to choose from, etc...

shabaz wrote:

 

Yet in other industries, IoT clearly already has significant value today, a proof-point being that people have put a lot of money on the table for massive deployments - for example multiple millions of nodes deployments are real in the smart meter space. Systems are being developed to handle tens of millions to billions of devices.

I think this gets into the question of defining what "Internet of Digital Things" (IDioT) really means.  shabaz has given some excellent examples of industrial products that are usefully networked, but many of these pre-date IDioT and would have been created without the IDioT hype.  They probably benefit (or will benefit) from low-cost chips that target consumer IDioT, though industrial applications usually require industrial temperature specs which the consumer chips may not have.

But the question is whether those applications are truly examples of IDioT devices, and is it appropriate to count them as IDioT successes?  Or are they only called IDioT devices so that companies can join the IDioT hype, like Alec Guinness' "atomic" vacuum cleaner in Our Man in Havana (1959)?  Has Dilbert had any IDioT cartoons where the bullet-headed CEO insists that all the company's products are now IDioT?

Personally, I like the definition of IDioT used in the Motley Fool article: "connecting everyday objects to the Internet".  In fact, I might go a bit further: "IDioT means connecting to the Internet everyday objects that have no business whatsoever being connected to the Internet."   (Thank you Ambrose Bierce for the inspiration!)

JMO/YMMV

shabaz wrote:

 

Yet in other industries, IoT clearly already has significant value today, a proof-point being that people have put a lot of money on the table for massive deployments - for example multiple millions of nodes deployments are real in the smart meter space. Systems are being developed to handle tens of millions to billions of devices.

I think this gets into the question of defining what "Internet of Digital Things" (IDioT) really means.  shabaz has given some excellent examples of industrial products that are usefully networked, but many of these pre-date IDioT and would have been created without the IDioT hype.  They probably benefit (or will benefit) from low-cost chips that target consumer IDioT, though industrial applications usually require industrial temperature specs which the consumer chips may not have.

But the question is whether those applications are truly examples of IDioT devices, and is it appropriate to count them as IDioT successes?  Or are they only called IDioT devices so that companies can join the IDioT hype, like Alec Guinness' "atomic" vacuum cleaner in Our Man in Havana (1959)?  Has Dilbert had any IDioT cartoons where the bullet-headed CEO insists that all the company's products are now IDioT?

Personally, I like the definition of IDioT used in the Motley Fool article: "connecting everyday objects to the Internet".  In fact, I might go a bit further: "IDioT means connecting to the Internet everyday objects that have no business whatsoever being connected to the Internet."   (Thank you Ambrose Bierce for the inspiration!)

JMO/YMMV