Poll: What is Your Leading IoT Prediction for 2020?

IoT security will continue to be a problem, but not because it is infeasible.

Vendors are still validating ideas in the marketplace.  Once they get clear support for their ideas, they can make the serious investments into security.
We are still early in the growth curve and it takes time.

I think that some sort of stagnation will come from the lack of low power infrastructure...

My area for example is still not covered by Sigfox and 5G.

White goods as a service.  That concept certainly stretches my thinking.  It makes sense and I know people that would jump on the program immediately.

BigG  wrote:

 

Wireless mesh networks (OpenThread/BLE/Other) will show it's value (IMHO it's a game changer). Especially with larger scale applications. The visual wow will come from drone swarms, large scale coordinated Digital displays etc. Plenty opportunity here.

 

More RISC-V chips will start to appear, possibly challenging ARM's dominance.

 

Industrial IoT will adopt AI/Machine Learning in a bigger way.

I agree with the last two items. Especially the RISC-V chips at least denting ARM market share.

Good points.

However, I would argue that white goods manufacturers, in particular (although fits with others too - such as smart TVs), should reconsider how they view their products.

In my view, a consumer or customer really wants a solution, i.e. something that cleans their clothes, or provides them with entertainment, by way of example.

Hence, if manufactures offered a clothes cleaning solution, for say an annual fee, then the manufacturer (who keeps ownership of the product) will no longer have the data issues, which they have now with a product they manufactured but do not own. If a solution is offered, then the product owner (i.e. the manufacturer) can notify the end user that they wish to repair or replace something if something went wrong (reactive), or is about to go wrong (predictive), or was outside the service level agreement performance threshold. This model also benefits the circular economy model as the manufacturer remains responsible for disposal (although that's a different value proposition altogether).

Furthermore, if we look at the existing model, where the consumer owns a product that is connected to a manufacturer's back-end data systems and the manufacturer then say changes the back-end, post production (and consumer cannot update this themselves), or the manufacture goes into liquidation, or there is a change of ownership, then a perfectly functional product may be rendered inoperable. There are actually quite a few examples of that already happening now.

So, without fundamental structural changes with product ownership to support the IoT connected model, I cannot see how manufacturers can realistically expect to get all the service data (as you suggested) they need and a consumer can continue to use the connected product without potential risk of operability problems later on.

Food for thought,

Retailers of high end consumer products will drive IoT growth.  A manufacturer that can tell you if your product has a major, minor, non-repairable or economically non-repairable issue could garner a lot of product loyalty.  When something fails, isn't that what we want to know?  Can it be fixed and, if so, how much is it going to cost?

In exchange for this information, the consumer must allow the manufacturer access to the product - allowing the manufacturer to know who has the item.  It's better than a warranty registration card.  The marketing of such a service would certainly have to emphasize IoT security.  I am skeptical about how concerned the average consumer is about security and cite Facebook and other social media platforms as my proof.  People post things online that they really shouldn't - or we wish they didn't.

IoT will not stagnate this year, it will accelerate. The skills shortage will definitely reduce the potential growth rate though.

This gap will not be bridged by training more IoT PhDs.

The incentive to sell more IoT technology will drive the industry to develop much simpler methods of developing IoT applications so the number of developers can easily be increased.

You should eventually see DIY IoT kits showing up in retail stores.

Many big players like Google and Amazon are already dipping their feet in the retail IoT waters, but there is still lots of room for all other players.

Wireless mesh networks (OpenThread/BLE/Other) will show it's value (IMHO it's a game changer). Especially with larger scale applications. The visual wow will come from drone swarms, large scale coordinated Digital displays etc. Plenty opportunity here.

More RISC-V chips will start to appear, possibly challenging ARM's dominance.

Industrial IoT will adopt AI/Machine Learning in a bigger way.