Internet of things: Growth and user experience – future view

Two top of the mind thoughts after drilling into IoT topic for short moment: Where is the growth in this domain and how end users are taken care of.

1) Where is the growth in IoT?

Currently many player are actively creating new ways to utilize different sensors or technological components. Innovation in this domain will meet competition really fast, as technologies are easily available for any new player interested in entering into this arena.

Actual sweet spot seem to be analytics and services based on data created by sensors. All sensor providers seem to be interested in creating their isolated hubs for data collection and reporting back to users. If end users want to utilize wider scale of sensors from different vendors they meet the issue of incompatibility. They have to take care of integrating different sources of data. Naturally sensor vendors want to maintain contact with end users after purchase of device, but end user dont see this as a merit for them.

2) Why user experience is growing bad?

IoT must move from product orientation to fulfill customer expectations. Devices should be combined into functional entity to bring the end user benefits visible. I believe there is a slot for sort of ecosystems to rise here too. Current situation is as ridiculous as if you would have different telephones for communicating with different people. With ecosystem approach it would be possible to collect and report information from different sources into one view. This would make the combined data sets more valuable for end users.

One example could be how automated printers behave. When running out of paper or ink, they can send an alarm to their vendor who can supply the needed additions. Why the printer is not communicating with market place where different vendors could make offers for full filling this demand? Naturally the reason is that printer manufacturer wants to maintain closed ecosystem to avoid competition. I don’t see that this would be sustainable in long run. How about your fridge? As soon as it is able to communicate with grocery store, would you like that your customer relation is monopolized by producer of fridge or would you like to get the best offers from market?

Hopefully we will start to see “things” that communicate openly to internet and i believe that is necessity as soon as real competition gives needed variety and options for end users. Market place where “things on internet” make bits and offers on your behalf – an interesting thought to carry on.