Bye Bye 2015: IoT Was. IoT Will?

Pratima H

INDIA: Until 2015, the world of technology was not any cacophony but it was a tad abrupt, hoarse or Staccato to be precise. With IoT (Internet of Things) , the notes being hummed by devices of all shape, and instruments of all sizes, became smoothly connected. The flow of the new world couldn’t have been more melodious and fluid.

In fact, so much was the excitement and song around this pretty young concept that there was no need to use the usual ‘for the uninitiated’ while talking about IoT as soon as 2015 started.

Everyone, who has not been living under a rock, in the technology world knows the suddenly possible marvels of connecting almost any device to another. Outrageous cross-breeding ideas are taking ground as we see geysers talking to cars, which in turn can mate with a traffic sensor that is presumably already chattering with a wrist-band, and do what was impossible just a few months back. Legato is here.

The offsprings are mind-blowing – an entirely new way of traffic management where cyclists can find all-green routes thanks to sensors connecting roads and wheels; a completely 'out of this world' comfort of switching the microwave off sitting miles away from the house; a strange sight of buffaloes allowing milk and diseases to be tracked real-time, or a jaw-dropping shopping experience of accessory-matching at a retail outfit.

When devices play together in this new choir, the world and the way we go about it has to turn musical.

And numbers and excitement had to flow in chorus.

In November 2014, Gartner forecasted 4.9 billion connected things to be in use in 2015. Forrester’s predictions for 2015 were not far off from this ebullience. It was outlined that actual software, cloud platforms, one-off products introduced to consumers, and real positive customer experiences, along with lengthened machine uptime and new as-a-service business models will slice the hype into something tangible this year. Something that would have wiped off the 'billions-of-devices' fixation with IoT.

Did that happen?

Out of Tune

IoT is indeed the ultimate technological symphony but like any good masterpiece, there are barriers, and more rough notes that pop up on the actual ground of adoption. Widespread IoT deployment cannot ignore the costs of connecting wide-area network compared to other networks like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and ZigBee. Even if non-cellular-enabled IoT devices typically connect to a network through a hub or router, there are complications on the set-up for customers and increase in the potential for failure.

Internet gear, hardware, sensor eco-system and skills slow down IoT's road

2015 has shown challenges playing out on multiple fronts. As the entire eco-system of IoT is just getting into place.; issues around hardware design and manufacturing capability, components and sensor eco-system and interoperability of wireless standards and to top that the pricing and ROI models for an Indian context, have come up as actual concerns.

Like Verizon pointed in its “State of the Market Internet of Things 2015” report the percentage of enterprises that have adopted IoT extensively is somewhere just around 10 per cent.

The Internet of Things (IoT) adoption in 2015 has taken the predictable path of the initial excitement in the assessment of Arjun Sinha Roy, Vice President, Internet of Things, netCORE. He sees this road now leading to the discovery of use cases with tangible use cases.

“The adoption in absolute number is not very high but is growing fast from a small base. Most organizations across key sectors have started evaluating the business processes likely to benefit from the implementation of IoT. Some sectors like transportation, both in the consumer and the B2B space, are seeing huge adoption of IoT across the whole business process. “

“As IoT becomes more widely adopted, network connectivity needs to be simple, reliable and economically viable. Plus of course, security is paramount for the safe and reliable operation of IoT connected devices,” reflects Prashant Gupta, Head of Solutions, Verizon Enterprise Solutions India.

In terms of general confusion and hesitation about digital adoption, talent and execution capabilities remain the core issues, opines Ajit Kumbhare, CEO of a start-up FreshGravity that intends to transform application development for evolving IoT trends. “Enterprise need people who understand the new digital domain. For instance, data science, which is our core area, needs extremely high level of statistics and other skills. Not having the right level of people can be quite a constraint for enterprises.”

Smart Homes is the first and an unapologetically-obvious use of the power of Internet in connecting a multitude of devices. As per a report from Schneider Electric (SE) recently, the smart home market could well grow at 30 per cent YOY, and possibly double in revenue every year. It showed a good disposition of all customers in upper-end homes with their inclination opt for some level of Smart Home solutions. But high cost and lack of clarity about the real value and surprisingly, even lack of awareness jumped out as barriers here.

In Forrester’s view, the all-in-one smart home won’t happen anytime soon. Yes, US online adult use of IoT is hitting 33 per cent across home, wearables, and car realms while smart home use cases in surveys for 2015 stood at seven per cent. Yet, the smart home will build up only gradually, cementing up piece by piece. Customers will have to embrace functionality from specific smart products and integrate them well, as is analysed right.

Gupta advises that understanding how to consume and manage data in order to address customer needs, solve market problems and generate societal benefits is a strong factor when it comes to scaling IoT.

“To help businesses and consumers gain more actionable insights, Verizon is powering IoT technology with its sophisticated big data engine. One of the most advanced data and analytics operations of any industry, Verizon’s platform is designed to consume massive amounts of data generated by IoT devices and other machines, analyze it at extremely high speeds and use scalable machine learning to turn raw data into usable intelligence. “

Machine Learning seems to have interesting intersections with IoT. Kumbhare reckons that it can change the software scenario completely, given the relatively low levels of intelligence in traditional software systems. “They were coded in a certain way and that’s how they will go on. IoT is also interesting because the data that was earlier not available will come to the fore and it will help concepts like Machine Learning become more powerful and predictive.” Kumbhare avers.

Sotto Voce

Companies, both traditional and modern, won’t shy away from using IoT to transform their businesses.

Roy is buoyant about some unique applications already happening around.

“In the B2B space, we have seen the Dairy Industry starting to adopt the IoT framework by implementing sensor based monitoring for their supply chain across warehouses, bulk milk chillers and pasteurization chambers. This will have a huge impact in how the supply chain can be reinvented and controlled and fresh products will be made available to the consumer.”

He also chimes in consumer space examples like Tesla here. “In the past, it has enabled software changes using software upgrades over the Air. I see that as the first instance of a machine built completely ground up to be connected to the internet (i.e. be IoT enabled).”

New advances, the right hardware technologies, adequate networking-side evolution and of course the holy grail of security would matter a lot if IoT has to live up to all the excitement that it still manages to churn.

Total economic impact of Cloud & IoT by 2025: 4.4 and 12.4 Trn $ (Mckinsey Global Inst)

Even as smart commercial buildings appear as highest users of Internet of Things (IoT) until 2017, smart homes will take the lead with some 1 billion connected things in 2018, as per Gartner’s estimates. Smart cities, could be a really strong adoption pocket here, with 1.6 billion connected things in smart cities by 2016, showing a 39 per cent jump from 2015. The hotness of IoT does not look like subsiding.

The entire ecosystem of smart TVs, smart set-top boxes, smart thermostats, smart bulbs, home automation tools, household appliances and new-age security systems could indicate the ground-reflection of IoT blossoming to its fullest.

As cited in a recent report, Forrester spots how in June 2015, Nest announced the second version of its Nest Protect, and the research major feels that in 2016, more product deals like this could emerge.

It is also augured that in 2016, it will be the norm for customers, enterprise or consumer, to automatically ask product sellers about the sensor capabilities in the mobile app for a new machine tool or a refrigerator etc as well as tick-boxes like the web API to the data.

Savvy customers will start to ask for details of any usage or service fees associated with using the product or the app — rather than asking about traditional service contracts or extended warranties, as per what Forrester sees ahead.

Note here how according to the "State of the Internet of Things" study from Accenture Interactive, nearly two-thirds of consumers intended to purchase a connected home device by 2019. There are many interesting ways in which retailers could be leveraging this new surface area, like enabling customers to browse through robots, or delighting them with personalized digital coupons as they hit a store, or scanning products with wearables for quick information or reviews.

Not yet Soprano

With as many barriers surrounding it as the number of expectations to metamorphose homes, shopping aisles, offices, cars, cities, buildings of the connected-flavour; IoT certainly finds itself overlapping with a lot of fast and furious notes running together, superimposing hope with scepticism in a fierce medley.

Until the fugue comprising two equally strong voices on either side of this new technology composition is played cleverly, Stretto is, after all, the word that stays.

For both IoT and the bugle for 2016.