The rise of IoT

There is now a rampant rise in predictions about the future of the Internet of Things (IoT). It is almost impossible to read a cutting edge IT article without some mention of IoT. It is now a fact that most organizations are trying to work out the role IoT will play in their future. IoT has almost taken over Big Data as the next topic companies have to crack.

To that end industry analysts are lining up to share their views on the impending growth. Recently IDC predicted that “By 2018, there will be 22 Billion IoT devices installed, driving the development of over 200,000 new IoT apps and services” and that “By 2018, IoT spending will grow 1.5X”.  Gartner also shared their view that “6.4 Billion Connected ‘Things’ Will Be in Use in 2016, Up 30 Percent From 2015, and will reach 25 billion by 2020″.

At the same time the World Economic Forum (wef) put out an excellent article “5 predictions for the Internet of Things in 2016“. The article nicely brings together many predictions ending with this comment which I fully agree with. “Thousands of businesses worldwide are already reaping IoT’s rewards, and 2016 will be the year that more companies join the IoT revolution.”

In my opinion the IoT revolution is not on its way – it is already underway! To that end I agree with many of the industry analysts that 2016 could be a big year for IoT.  In an earlier post I covered my thoughts on “Why the Internet of Things will change how you interact with your customers”. That post focused on the styles of “interactions” and services I expect to see organizations having to carry out with their customers because of the advent of IoT.

In this post I want to share a few thoughts on why I believe a different type of personalization is going to be driven via the growth of IoT. This personalization I believe will be welcome, if seen at all, and not seen as creepy.

Digitizing the world using IoT

I like to think about the Internet Of Things as being at the heart of a move to digitize the world. Sensors are shrinking in size. They are now available in a variety of materials, shapes and types. At the same time connectivity is becoming more ubiquitous. All of this is happening as prices to build sensors and connect to a network are dropping. Very few barriers now remain with respect to being able to take almost anything and digitize it.

Digitization, however, is not a new trend. Humanity has been busy digitizing many aspects of our lives for sometime now. Take a look at the evolution of the speedometer to see one such example or look at all the sensors you might find on an oil rig to see digitization in action. Today the breadth and depth of digitization is gathering pace and I believe we are about to see a Moore’s law movement when it comes to sensor density in our world.

Over the next few years  I believe we will start to see the digitization of things we would never have previously imagined. For example we will see hundreds of sensors put into your car seat. These sensors will help to digitize your posture (more on that later) or to work out who the driver is to configure/personalize aspects of the car for that specific person. It does not end there though. Companies such as L’Oréal are trying to work out how to digitize aspects of their consumer products (read more) such as Mascara. This might sound creepy because of the security concerns we have around our digital data today. In the future I believe those obstacles will be overcome. A digital personal world will become the norm especially as more digital natives enter the workforce and become primary consumers.

I think we can take it for granted that the world is going to be digitized.  What this means is that every organization will need to be able to use and leverage the Internet Of Things. This is going to present a lot of IT challenges requiring new technologies and globally available and accessible platforms. Those IT challenges, however, are not the focus of this blog.

IoT – Enabler for New Levels Of Personalization

If we accept that we will soon have all these sensors, and a very digital world, then the question is: what value will sensors and the digitization of the world bring?

I believe the main answer to this question is that “things” will be SMARTER as they will be capable of personalizing themselves to their users and/or their current operating environment.  In addition I think value will come from a great step up in transparency into how things are performing and thus what might need proactive attention without needing to just impart generic rules.

To highlight my view  lets visit a hypothetical future IoT enabled car. Today the car manufacturer lets the purchaser “personalize” the car BEFORE it is delivered.  Once the purchaser receives the car today it really does not adjust too much more to you, or those who will use the car, as a driver. In essence your personal experience with that car ends when it rolls off the production line.

Moving forwards I think cars will be filled with sensors that allow it to learn about the driver, and how they drive, making the experience for each driver in each car unique. In essence the “SMARTER” car will continuously tailor itself to the driver once it is delivered allowing ongoing and continuous personalization throughout the lifetime of the car.

In a future IoT enabled car:

• Biometric sensors will be used to allow specific drivers to get into cars and start them much like we unlock our iPhones today. This could extend to passengers being able to open other doors or windows for example;
• Pressure sensors in seats will be able to learn the drivers posture such that the car can detect if that specific driver is alert or possibly requires intervention based on comparing normal posture to sudden changes. Those same sensors might detect who you are such that the car setup of wing mirrors, seat etc can adjust to you automatically when you sit down even if someone else opened the door using the previously outlined biometric sensors;
• Different types of sensors throughout the car will  monitor the specific drivers driving style continuously as it changes say between an urban and rural area. When combining this with the wishes of the specific driver it will be possible to continuously personalize the engine settings to reduce fuel consumption, optimize engine emissions or to improve performance for example (we see this today in Formula one where drivers turn their engines up and down);
• Various sensors around fuel will be able to combine road conditions, the drivers specific personal engine settings , the drivers specific driving style and the specific destination to suggest where that driver should stop to refuel given all of these factors. Different drivers will likely get different recommendations in the same scenario based on all the inputs.
• Various sensors will continuously monitor and learn how you drive the car such that things like the clutch biting point or brake sensitivity will adjust to each specific driver rather than be based on a general “off the production line” setting. Maybe based on speed and road conditions the car will alter itself in many ways (suspension, aerodynamics etc) to best suite the specific driving style given where you are driving.
• Parts throughout the car will be monitored by a myriad of sensors and this will help personalize the experience of car maintenance. What this means is that that rather than working on simple metrics, such as go for  service every 10,000 miles and get everything checked the car will be able to proactively sense when it needs a maintenance and direct that activity precisely based on all the factors around the specific drivers using it.
• Cars will have sensors that can detect and monitor the temperature of specific people. Using that it will be able to continuously adjust individual temperature flows to ensure they stay at a body temperature of their choice as opposed to just setting the ambient temperature for regions of the car.

In essence the car will adjust to provide each driver, or collection of drivers and passengers, the ultimate personalized driving and consumer experience while maintaining the highest level of safety. In this sense IoT helps to deliver a more personal car to the drivers of that car even after it has left the factory. It is a car that continuously adjusts as it is used.

The examples above, in the car, mostly use information that can be stored and processed within the car delivering a personalized experience that is not creepy at all. Of course some of that data could be shared to provision new services as well and this is where care needs to be taken not to turn things creepy.

We can also apply much of this to a non-consumer world. When placing sensors on everyday things, such as elevators, we would be able to remotely monitor their usage overtime and try to predict when maintenance might be required for example. In everyday usage the information sensors on an elevator collect with respect to its usage would allow it to personalize how it operates to minimize wait times at different times of the day personalizing the experience to the users in the building. The possibilities are endless as we create SMART things.

Conclusion

A lot of people are worried about the Internet of Things. There is no doubt that much work is needed to beef up security. What I do not fully support are those who think the Internet of Things will automatically  lead to a creepy new world. I think evolution has seen us accept innovations, with controls and governance, over time and I believe IoT will be the same.

IoT will impact our business lives, it will impact the things we are using day to day (cars, trains, elevators etc) and it will impact our consumer/customer lives.  I think that the good ways it will impact will outweigh any negatives and that 5 years from now we will be past the privacy discussions and looking back at how things were transformed for the better.

I would be interested in your thoughts….