The Internet of Things revolution started in 2015 and will continue to be strong in 2016. 2015 was the year everyone talked about the Internet of Things. (So was 2014. And 2013.) But unlike before, it was the year everyone started making plans, laying groundwork, and building the infrastructure. Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. The premise of IoT is that a connected world will offer gains through efficiency.
The Internet of Things (IoT) has been called the next Industrial Revolution — it will change the way all businesses, governments, and consumers interact with the physical world. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an environment in which objects, animals or people are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer the data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)
and the Internet. IoT is also called the Internet of Everything. A critical component for the IoT system to be a success will be secure bi-directional communication, mobility and localization services.
In the future, everything will be connected. It won’t just be our phones that access the Internet; it will be our light bulbs, our front doors, our microwaves, our comforters, our blenders. You can call it the Internet of Things, The Internet of Everything, Universal Object Interaction, or your pick of buzzwords that begin with Smart. They all hold as inevitable that everything, everything will be connected, to each other and to the Internet. And this is promised to change the world. Remember that the objects themselves do not benefit us, but what services and functions they make it possible to obtain. We will enjoy the outcome, hopefully even better quality products, informative and reliable services, and even new applications.
There will be lots of money spend on IoT in 2016, the exact sum is hard to define, but it is estimated that nearly $6 trillion will be spent on IoT solutions over the next five years. IoT is now a very large global business dominated by giants (IBM, Intel, Cisco, Gemalto, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Bosch, GE, AT&T, T-Mobile, Telefonica and many others). I see that because it is still a young and quickly developing market, there will be lots of potential in it for startups in 2016.
There will be a very large number of new IoT devices connected to Internet in the end of 2016. According to Business Insider The Internet of Things Report there was 10 billion devices connected to the internet in 2015 and there will be will be 34 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devicesw ill comprise 10 billion (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.). Juniper research predicted that by 2020, there will be 38.5 billion connected devices. IDC says it’ll be 20.9 billion. Gartner’s guess? Twenty-five billion. The numbers don’t matter, except that they’re huge. They all agree that most of those gadgets will be industrial Internet of Things. The market for connecting the devices you use all day, every day, is about to be huge.
Businesses will be the top adopter of IoT solutions because they see ways the IoT can improve their bottom line: lowering operating costs, increasing productivity, expand to new markets and develop new product offerings. Sensors, data analytics, automation and wireless communication technologies allow the study of the “self-conscious” machines, which are able to observe their environment and communicate with each other. From predictive maintenance that reduces equipment downtime to workers using mobile devices on the factory floor, manufacturing is undergoing dramatic change. The Internet of Things (IoT) is enabling increased automation on the factory floor and throughout the supply chain, 3D printing is changing how we think about making components, and the cloud and big data are enabling new applications that provide an end-to-end view from the factory floor to the retail store.
Governments are focused on increasing productivity, decreasing costs, and improving their citizens’ quality of life. The IoT devices market will connect to climate agreements as in many applicatons IoT can be seen as one tool to help to solve those problems. A deal to attempt to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C was agreed at the climate change summit in Paris in December 2015. Sitra fresh market analysis indicates that there is up to an amount of EUR 6 000 billion market potential for smart green solutions by 2050. Smart waste and water systems, materials and packaging, as well as production systems together to form an annual of over EUR 670 billion market. Smart in those contests typically involves use of IoT technologies.
Consumers will lag behind businesses and governments in IoT adoption – still they will purchase a massive number of devices. There will be potential for marketing IoT devices for consumers: Nine out of ten consumers never heard the words IoT or Internet of Things, October 2015! It seems that the newest IoT technology extends homes in 2016 – to those homes where owner has heard of those things. Wi-Fi has become so ubiquitous in homes in so many parts of the world that you can now really start tapping into that by having additional devices. The smart phones and the Internet connection can make home appliances, locks and sensors make homes and leisure homes in more practical, safer and more economical. Home adjusts itself for optimal energy consumption and heating, while saving money. During the next few years prices will fall to fit for large sets of users. In some cases only suitable for software is needed, as the necessary sensors and data connections can be found in mobile phones. Our homes are going to get smarter, but it’s going to happen slowly. Right now people mostly buy single products for a single purpose. Our smart homes and connected worlds are going to happen one device, one bulb at a time. The LED industry’s products will become more efficient, reliable, and, one can hope, interoperable in the near future. Companies know they have to get you into their platform with that first device, or risk losing you forever to someone else’s closed ecosystem.
The definitions what would be considered IoT device and what is a traditional computing devices is not entirely clear, and I fear that we will not get a clear definition for that in 2016 that all could agree. It’s important to remember that the IoT is not a monolithic industry, but rather a loosely defined technology architecture that transcends vertical markets to make up an “Internet of everything.”
Too many people – industry leaders, media, analysts, and end users – have confused the concept of
“smart” with “connected”. Most devices – labeled “IoT” or “smart” – are simply connected devices. Just connecting a device to the internet so that it can be monitored and controlled by someone over the web using a smart phone is not smart. Yes, it may be convenient and time saving, but it is not “smart”. Smart means intelligence.
IoT New or Not? YES and NO. There are many cases where whole IoT thing is hyped way out of proportion. For the most part, it’s just the integration of existing technologies. Marketing has driven an amount of mania around IoT, on the positive side getting it on the desks of decision makers, and on the negative generating ever-loftier predictions. Are IoT and M2M same or different? Yes and no depending on case. For sure for very many years to come IoT and M2M will coexist.
Nearly a dozen contenders are trying to fill a need for long distance networks that cut the cost and power consumption of today’s cellular machine-to-machine networks. Whose technology protocols should these manufacturers incorporate into their gear? Should they adopt ZigBee, Apple’s HomeKit, Allseen Alliance/AllJoyn, or Intel’s Open Interconnect Consortium? Other 802.15.4 technologies? There are too many competing choices.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, two pioneers of the Internet of Things are expanding their platforms and partnerships. Crowdfunding sites and hardware accelerators are kicking out startups at a regular clip, typically companies building IoT devices that ride Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Bluetooth Special Interest group is expected to release in2016 support for mesh networks and higher data rates.
Although ZWave and Zigbee helped pioneer the smart home and building space more than a decade ago, but efforts based on Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 6LoWPAN are poised to surpass them. Those pioneering systems are actively used and developed. Zigbee Alliance starts certification for its unified version 3.0 specification in few months (includes profiles for home and building automation, LED lighting, healthcare, retail and smart energy). EnOcean Alliance will bring its library of about 200 application profiles for 900 MHz energy harvesting devices to Zigbee networks. Zigbee will roll out a new spec for smart cities. The Z-Wave Security 2 framework will start a beta test in February and Z-Wave aims to strike a collaboration withleading IoT application framework platforms. Zigbee alredy has support Thread.
The race to define, design and deploy new low power wide area networks for the Internet of Things won’t cross a finish line in 2016. But by the end of the year it should start to be clear which LPWA nets are likely to have long legs and the opportunities for brand new entrants will dim significantly. So at the moment it is hard to make design choices. To protect against future technology changes, maybe the device makers should design in wireless connectivity chips and software that will work with a variety of protocols? That’s complicated and expensive. But if I pick only one technology I can easily pick up wrong horse, and it is also an expensive choice.
Within those who want to protect against future technology changes, there could be market for FPGAs in IoT devices. The Internet of Things (IoT) is broken and needs ARM-based field programmable gate array (FPGA) technology to fix it, an expert told engineers at UBM’s Designers of Things conference in San Jose. You end up with a piece of hardware that can be fundamentally changed in the field.
There seems to be huge set of potential radio techniques also for Internet of Things even for long distance and low power consumpion. Zigbee will roll out a new spec for smart cities in February based on the 802.15.4g standard for metro networks. It will compete with an already crowded field of 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz networks from Sigfox, the LoRa Alliance, Ingenu and others. Weightless-P is an open standard announced by Weightless SIG, which operates at frequencies below one gigahertz. Weightless-P nodes and development cards will be expected to be in the market already during the first quarter of 2016, at the moment Weightless IoT Hardware Virtually Unavailable.
I expect LoRa Technology is expected to be hot in 2016. The LoRaWAN standard enables low-data-rate Internet of Things (IoT) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) wireless communication with a range of up to 10 miles, a battery life of 10 years, and the ability to connect millions of wireless sensor nodes to LoRaWAN gateways. LoRa® technology works using a digital spread spectrum modulation and proprietary protocol in the Sub-GHz RF band (433/868/915 MHz). I see LoRa technology interesting because lots of activity around in Finland in several companies (especially Espotel) and I have seen a convincing hands-in demo of the LoRa system in use.
It seems that 3GPP Lost its Way in IoT and there is fragmentation ahead in cellular standards. In theory 3GPP should be the default provider of IoT connectivity, but it seems that it has now failed in providing one universal technology. At the moment, there are three major paths being supported by 3GPP for IoT: the machine-type version of LTE (known as LTE-M) and two technologies coming from the Cellular-IoT initiative — NB-IoT and EC-GSM. So here we are with three full standardization efforts in 3GPP for IoT connectivity. It is too much. There will like be a base standard in 2016 for LTE-M.
The promise of billions of connected devices leads everyone to assume that there will be plenty of room for multiple technologies, but this betrays the premise of IoT, that a connected world will offer gains through efficiency. Too many standard will cause challenges for everybody. Customers will not embrace IoT if they have to choose between LTE-M and Sigfox-enabled products that may or may not work in all cases. OEM manufacturers will again bear the cost, managing devices at a regional or possibly national level. Again, we lose efficiency and scale. The cost of wireless connectivity will remain a barrier to entry to IoT.
Today’s Internet of Things product or service ultimately consists of multiple parts, quite propably supplied by different companies. An Internet of Things product or service ultimately consists of multiple parts. One is the end device that gathers data and/or executes control functions on the basis of its communications over the Internet. Another is the gateway or network interface device. Once on the Internet, the IoT system needs a cloud service to interact with. Then, there is the human-machine interface (HMI) that allows users to interact with the system. So far, most of the vendors selling into the IoT development network are offering only one or two of these parts directly. Alternatives to this disjointed design are arising, however. Recently many companies are getting into the end-to-end IoT design support business, although to different degrees.
Voice is becoming more often used the user interface of choice for IoT solutions. Smartphones let you control a lot using only your voice as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung have their solutions for this. For example Amazon, SoundHound and Nuance have created systems that allow to add language commands to own hardware or apps. Voice-activated interface becomes pervasive and persistent for IoT solutions in 2016. Right now, most smart home devices are controlled through smartphones, and it seems like that’s unlikely to change. The newest wearable technology, smart watches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce – it learns from its users, and generate as responses in real time appropriate, “micro-moments” tied to experience.
Monitoring your health is no longer only a small group oriented digital consumer area. Consumers will soon take advantage of the health technology extensively to measure well-being. Intel Funds Doctor in Your Pocket and Samsung’s new processor is meant for building much better fitness trackers. Also, insurance companies have realized the benefits of health technologies and develop new kinds of insurance services based on data from IoT devices.
Samsung’s betting big on the internet of things and wants the TV to sit at the heart of this strategy. Samsung believes that people will want to activate their lights, heating and garage doors all from the comfort of their couch. If smart TVs get a reputation for being easy to hack, then Samsung’s models are hardly likely to be big sellers. After a year in which the weakness of smart TVs were exploited, Samsung goes on the offensive in 2016. Samsung’s new Tizen-based TVs will have GAIA security with pin lock for credit card and other personal info, data encryption, built-in anti-malware system, more.
This year’s CES will focus on how connectivity is proliferating everything from cars to homes, realigning diverse markets – processors and networking continue to enhance drones, wearables and more. Auto makers will demonstrate various connected cars. There will be probably more health-related wearables at CES 2016, most of which will be woven into clothing, mainly focused on fitness. Whether or not the 2016 International CES holds any big surprises remains to be seen. The technology is there. Connected light bulbs, connected tea kettles, connected fridges and fans and coffeemakers and cars—it’s all possible. It’s not perfect, but the parts are only going to continue to get better, smaller, and cheaper.
Connectivity of IoT devices will still have challeges in 2016. While IoT standards organizations like the Open Interconnect Consortium and the AllSeen Alliance are expected to demonstrate their capabilities at CES, the industry is still a ways away from making connectivity simple. In 2016 it will still pretty darn tedious to get all these things connected, and there’s all these standards battles coming on. So there will be many standards in use at the same time. The next unsolved challenge: How the hell are all these things going to work together? Supporting open APIs that connect with various services is good.
Like UPnP and DLNA, AllJoyn could become the best-kept secret in the connected home in 2016 — everyone has it, no one knows about it. AllJoyn is an open-source initiative to connect devices in the Internet of Things. Microsoft added support for AllJoyn to Windows in 2014.
Analysis will become important in 2016 on IoT discussions. There’s too much information out there that’s available free, or very cheaply. We need systems to manage the information so we can make decisions. Welcome to the systems age.
The rise of the Internet of Things and Web services is driving new design principles. The new goal is to delight customers with experiences that evolve in flexible ways that show you understand their needs. “People are expecting rich experiences, fun and social interactions… this generation gets bored easily so you need to understand all the dimensions of how to delight them”
With huge number of devices security issues will become more and more important. In 2016, we’ll need to begin grappling with the security concerns these devices raise. The reality of everything being connected can have unintended consequences, not all of them useful – Welcome to the Internet of stupid (hackable) things.
Security: It was a hot topic for 2015 and if anything it will get hotter in 2016. The reason is clear. By adding connectivity embedded systems not only increase their utility, they vastly increase their vulnerability to subversion with significant consequences. Embedded systems that add connectivity face many challenges, of which the need for security is both vital and misunderstood. But vendors and developers have been getting the message and solutions are appearing in greater numbers, from software libraries to MCUs with a secure root of trust.
Bruce Schneier is predicting that the IoT will be abused in conjunction with DMCA to make our lives worse instead of better. In theory, connected sensors will anticipate your needs, saving you time, money, and energy. Except when the companies that make these connected objects act in a way that runs counter to the consumer’s best interests. The story of a company using copy-protection technology to lock out competitors—isn’t a new one. Plenty of companies set up proprietary standards to ensure that their customers don’t use someone else’s products with theirs. Because companies can enforce anti-competitive behavior this way, there’s a litany of things that just don’t exist, even though they would make life easier for consumers.
Internet of Things is coming. It’s not a matter of if or whether, but when and how. Maybe it’ll be 2016, maybe the year after, but the train is coming. It’ll have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and probably eight other things, and you’ll definitely get a push notification when it gets here.
More interesting material links:
1,510 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
IOT Piggybacks on Lego: Simple Physics
Lego on steriods
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329651&
CEO started up another company in June last year, Brixo Smart Toys ltd, with the scope to commercialize Lego-compatible electronic bricks. Running a crowdfunding campaign on KickStarter and only with a few hours left, the Israeli startup has raised well over ten times its initial $50,000 goal, offering what it describes as Lego on steroids.
The chrome-plated bricks can conduct electricity, integrate active parts such as LED lights, motor blocks, and even sound, light and proximity sensors. The conductive bricks feature flexible side-arms that ensure electrical connection between two adjacent blocks, and the whole assemblies are powered by a Bluetooth-controlled 9V battery block. The built-in Bluetooth controller lets users change the current’s direction and voltage levels via a mobile application.
That means the Brixo bricks can not only be triggered by sound, light and touch, but also controlled by any Bluetooth connected device, taking the good old Lego bricks further into the IoT world (the Danish company already has its entries in the cloud via its Mindstorms Lego series and the augmented-reality capable Nexo Knights toys
IoT piggybacks on Lego: simple physics
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/news/iot-piggybacks-lego-simple-physics
Visit Brixo Smart Toys ltd at http://www.getbrixo.com
Tomi Engdahl says:
AR browser unveils real world objects’ digital life
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/news/ar-browser-unveils-real-world-objects-digital-life
During a live streaming conference held in Boston yesterday (January 28th), PTC’s president and CEO Jim Heppelmann shared his vision of Augmented Reality for the Internet of Things, two hot topics merged into one to englobe every possible aspects of life, from consumer to medical or industrial applications.
Over the last couple of years, the software service provider has made a number of strategic acquisitions to position itself at the forefront of both augmented reality and IoT. Last year, it acquired Vuforia and its augmented reality (AR) technology platform, and in 2014, PTC was acquiring ThingWorx and Axeda, both companies bringing key IoT connectivity and data management solutions.
Heppelmann started with a simple demonstration, showing a dull empty automotive dashboard, and suddenly bringing it to life with different sets of digital dials by simply looking at it through a tablet’s video screen.
“In the future, with AR goggles, you could bring your personalized dials and dashboard interface in any car you buy” he said, inviting the audience to take a fresh look at things.
“Even before AR glasses become commonplace, the explosive adoption of smartphones and tablets is already taking AR to the mainstream”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel, CEA Team on IoT Research
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329927&
-Intel Corp. and France’s CEA have signed a five-year agreement to enable a shared R&D program and the submission of proposals jointly for European Union funded collaborative R&D projects.
The agreement will be particularly relevant to high-performance computing as part of the Horizon 2020 program, CEA said. The deal covers several research programs at CEA-Leti in Grenoble, including the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless communications, security, and 3D displays.
Intel launched its own Europe-wide network of R&D labs in 2009.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zigbee Mesh Gets Early Praise
Spec spans array of standards, options
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329903&
Analysts gave guarded praise to JupiterMesh, a new specification for a wireless mesh network from the Zigbee Alliance, targeting utility, industrial and smart city markets. JupiterMesh supports IPv6 traffic at data rates from 6.25 to 800 Kbits/second over 800 MHz to 2.4 GHz unlicensed bands, embracing IETF and other security standards.
JupiterMesh is based on IEEE 802.15.4e/g media access control and physical layers including support for CSMA or TSCH modes. It supports 6LoWPAN, UDP, TCP, RPL, CoAP, and other IETF protocols as well as multicasting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Sensors and the LED Industry
https://issuu.com/eeweb/docs/06-2015_sensor_technology_1_pages/6?e=7607911/36448997
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Benefits of a Java-Based Application Framework for IoT Projects
http://blog.eurotech.com/en/?p=106&utm_source=IIoT+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=June&utm_campaign=IIot#more-106
IoT projects present many challenges, even when the hardware is designed exactly to customer specifications. Building on proven architecture and software building blocks that would require many years to develop, the use of a Java-based IoT application framework will result in shorter, more deterministic device software development. Using an IT-centric approach to implement the device logic in smart edge devices improves both device management and embedded application management. Once this standard software platform is in place, connecting and getting business relevant data to the cloud is simpler than it ever has been before.
An advanced software framework that leverages OSGi and Java both isolates the developer from the complexity of the hardware and communications infrastructure and also complements the Multi-Service Gateway hardware for an integrated hardware and software solution.
The benefits of IT-centric application development to implement business logic in smart edge devices/service gateways are:
* Simplifying application development for smart M2M Multi-Service Gateways and Smart Edge Devices.
* Optimizing portability across systems and hardware architectures.
* Improving device management (local and remote).
* Integrating native M2M platforms and protocols (Everyware Cloud, MQTT).
* Managing local and remote applications.
Java is ideal for application code development in connected devices such as IoT gateways enabling a robust software infrastructure for service delivery platforms. This enables easy code development through software simulation before porting onto the embedded devices and reducing time to market.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making IoT magic
http://www.cio.com/article/3072909/internet-of-things/making-iot-magic.html
Connecting devices is just the first act in an Internet of Things production. The magic happens when analytics transform data into business intelligence. CIOs need to play a role.
Fred and Ginger, peanut butter and jelly, the Internet of Things (IoT) and… analytics?
Despite all the hoopla over what’s possible with connected products, the connecting part is easy compared to what it takes to develop and deploy analytic systems that transform the data deluge into something that gives companies a competitive business advantage.
“Analytics is at the core of the IoT value proposition — it’s the central component for enabling the automation and promise of IoT, whether for consumer or enterprise markets,” says Ryan Martin, an analyst at ABI Research. Given the importance of analytics to the value of connected systems, ABI is projecting the market for tools that integrate, store, analyze and report on IoT data to hit $30 billion in 2021.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Asking ‘Why?’ will define the Internet of Things 2.0
http://www.cio.com/article/3073455/internet-of-things/the-internet-of-things-20-will-be-defined-by-why.html?utm_source=IIoT+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=June&utm_campaign=IIot
The Internet of Things 2.0 is emerging and it will bring an end to the technology push that has characterized efforts to create value with the IoT up to now. The IoT 2.0 will be defined by the “why” of new offerings and lead by those companies who lead with a design-thinking approach to their product developments.
Paul Metaxos and I recently published an article in Harvard Business Review on the importance of design in creating value in the next phase of the Internet of things (IoT) — IoT 2.0. IoT 2.0 is the natural next step in the technology adoption curve and will bring in a new wave of IoT-facilitated solutions that will demonstrate a higher rate of adoption and return on investment. The IoT can be harder than other technology adoption progressions because of the sheer mass and pervasive nature of the technology ecosystem if companies do not adapt.
40 years of Moore’s Law combined with Marc Andreessen’s “software is eating the world” has made every technical challenge viable from a cost point and accelerated the pace at which new features and offerings become available.
IoT as a technology has been in progress for over 5 years — it first showed up on the Gartner Hype Cycle in 2011. I, like many others who have worked in the connected product and mobile communications space, can say “IoT is just another name for what we have been doing since the early 1990s” and this is true from an existence point of view. But as a specifically identified, named, and tracked technology suite IoT has been around for about 5 years. The 2016 Hype Curve has IoT falling into the dreaded Trough of Disillusionment and squarely in Geoffrey Moore’s “Chasm.” Recent events like the Nest Revolv sudden end-of-life decision and SmartThings home hub security hack videos have helped validate IoT’s position on the Curve.
It’s never good when a consumer looks at a product and asks “Why?” Marketing teams are supposed to ask why: Why will customers buy this product? or Why will this product change people’s lives? Investors are supposed to ask why: Why will customers choose this product over all others to solve their problem? or Why does the world need this product now more than any other?
The problem with technology adoption curves is that they focus attention on the technology but are actually a measure not of the technology, but of the skills of the users of the technology. Users of technology, the innovators if you will, succeed not by how skilled they are in the technology itself but by how skilled they are in uncovering and solving user problems that matter. Up until now the users of IoT technology can be characterized as technology-centric, often horizontal companies looking to push IoT solutions into the market. IoT 2.0 will be characterized by successes created by teams that clearly understand why they are building the new product.
Asking “why” is going to change what we see in the IoT 2.0 solutions in three ways.
1. Companies will leverage market segmentation. When development teams start focusing on user problems they find that diversity is not just an HR policy, it’s a fact of buying behavior.
2. Customer experiences will be simpler. Einstein said “make everything as simple as possible and no simpler.” He was referring to the models and mathematics that physicists were developing to understand the physical world.
3. Retrofit and after-market solutions will drive revenue. When companies focus on their customers, existing and future, they discover unmet needs for both. After they develop an solution do they then tell their existing loyal customers, “Sorry, you need to buy this new [appliance here] to get our new solution?”
IoT 2.0 is going to see OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) find ways to solve new problems and generate new revenue from the installed base.
The Internet of Things Needs Design, Not Just Technology
https://hbr.org/2016/04/the-internet-of-things-needs-design-not-just-technology
Gartner Research predicts that the typical family home will contain as many as 500 networked devices by 2020. Similarly, Ericsson forecasts 50 billion connected “things” by the same date. Reaching these lofty projections over the next four years, however, will require a fundamental reorientation in the way that technologists and product designers work together to create successful “connected” personal devices and home appliance products. This evolution to “Internet of Things (IoT) 2.0” will be difficult for many companies to achieve — not for lack of technological expertise but because they’ll fail to recognize the value of design in connected product development.
Machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity — the forerunner of consumer-focused IoT — has been around for decades. Overwhelmingly, those IoT 1.0 applications pushed technology to address B2B market requirements.
Product design considerations in the IoT 1.0 world are not critical to persuading customers to adopt offerings. Enterprise IoT buyers seldom require great design, because most often the buyer is not the product’s end user. Fleet logistics companies, for example, monitor the condition and location of their vehicles. Their developers focus on meeting operational and environmental requirements
However, as the application of IoT expands to a broader range of commercial opportunities, enterprise B2B applications have become B2B2C. Fleet vehicle operators now directly engage with IoT devices that can measure their physical condition as well as their driving behavior. As B2C companies rush to exploit new IoT applications, pushing technology to potential end users no longer works. Increasingly, the pull of user experience will drive market demand, and product design will be critical to getting consumers to adopt offerings in this new IoT 2.0 world.
The fundamental principle in the IoT 2.0 era is that IoT is not the end product. The IoT is not an iPhone, a networking application, or a wearable device. Customers do not buy IoT. In fact, studies suggest that most consumers are unaware of what IoT is or does. IoT connectivity can enhance a product’s value, but it can never serve as the rationale for the customer purchase.
This misunderstanding of IoT’s role is contributing to a growing list of commercial failures by product manufacturers. Their excuses for missteps include security issues, complexities of managing product life cycles, and lack of interoperability. But most often the root cause is that IoT companies with traditional B2B business models and B2B2C distribution channels have been pushing IoT technology rather than addressing the pull of customer needs and tastes.
When end users fail to engage with an IoT offering, technology is most often viewed as the problem and solution: “We need better security.” “We need to be interoperable with these other products.” “We need a smartphone app.” The “we,” however, seldom includes the end user’s perspective, and so market acceptance continues to suffer until management pulls the plug on the product.
Effective product design and innovation are the result of an integrated, thoughtful process that focuses on making things that simplify, delight, or enrich the lives of people. The IoT, because of its innate technological integration and new customer experiences, demands a significantly higher level of design and technology partnership.
Here are five ways that technology and design can build successful partnerships to succeed in IoT 2.0.
Agree to a clear problem statement. Every new product development is based on addressing some problem or opportunity, but often those issues — obsolescence, margins, quality — don’t reflect the needs of the customer.
Appoint a systems lead who understands design. Your development team likely has a lead systems person who understands the technology stack, but for an IoT offering, that individual must also possess an understanding of the user and their experience.
Work with designers who understand technology. IoT also requires a technology-aware approach to design. Product experience now includes upgrades, adapting to other products, personalization, and big data.
Follow a build-test-learn process. More than other technologies, IoT development benefits from the lean start-up process. The expectation of recurring revenue demands a recurring customer experience in a market with a continuous stream of new competitors.
Simplify for success. Consumers demand simple solutions to everyday problems. Friction of any kind in the user experience, even for something as mundane as having to change batteries, will give users reason to stop using a product — which is death to an IoT offering.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 ways IoT security concerns are taken out of context
http://www.cio.com/article/3053928/internet-of-things/3-ways-iot-security-concerns-are-taken-out-of-context.html
This Saturday was like most every other day for me. I opened my RSS Internet of Things (IoT) news feed and there were three more articles telling me that consumers don’t trust IoT security. IoT security alerts have been so frequent and regular for so long now that just like a “check engine light” in an old car I am beginning to ignore them.
More than once I have heard “In God we trust” all others bring data. But data requires analysis so let’s look at a few recent figures:
52 percent of consumers believe that these products [IoT] do not have the necessary security in place
Effect of the IoT on security is a concern of 70 percent of US users
Globally, 60 percent of consumers are worried about the [security and privacy of the] new technology [IoT]
90 percent of developers don’t believe IoT applications have necessary security
80 percent of consumers don’t know what IoT is, or care about IoT things.
Wait a minute. 80 percent of consumers don’t know what IoT is or even care? How can 70 percent be concerned about IoT security when four out of five don’t know what it is? Are you familiar with the 1936 “Landon beats Roosevelt in a landslide” prediction? Something isn’t right here.
Look again at the survey that found that 52 percent of respondents don’t believe IoT has the necessary security. The same survey found that 49 percent don’t trust IoT devices with their data – but still use them. Let’s break this down.
Honeywell has been selling wireless thermostats for 15 years and together with new players like Nest, who has had more than their share of privacy problems, they have provided over ten million customers with remote access solutions in the last five years. Security always requires context. Security is never perfect. Security risk is a choice that is made for any connected offering purchase. Some require more assurance than others, but the choice is always one of what is appropriate for the application and appropriate for the individual.
Here is the problem. This focus on consumer anxiety about IoT security in the context of adoption is completely distracting us from the real problem – creating value by solving problems that matter. Consumers don’t buy IoT – they buy solutions to problems. They don’t buy privacy or security just like they don’t buy quality. They pay for quality and will pay for security and privacy; but always at a level they deem appropriate and always as part of a purchasing decision for the solution to a problem.
Customers don’t buy security
Customers buy solutions to problems. They don’t buy security, privacy, or even IoT. First and foremost focus your team on solving problems that matter to users. Make sure that your team has design thinkers who are accountable to users and user experience. IoT may be a key technology or may enable a completely new business model for your company, but your customer doesn’t care. They pay for solutions to their problems, not for technology. Once you have the solution you will have a reason to consider the security of your IoT offering.
Security is relative
Customers will pay for security – appropriate security at an appropriate price. They will judge the level of security and privacy you offer against that of your competitors and against their level of need. The survey revealed that 49 percent of consumers are using imperfect products if the value of the use exceeds the risk to their privacy.
Appropriate security solutions exist
Sales data and consumer surveys alike show that appropriate security solutions exist for numerous IoT applications. But the news reports and professional analysis also show that security has not been made sufficient on other products. Appropriate security technology exists but diligence and good process are required to make solutions that work.
There is no question that security is and will continue to be a critical requirement for IoT solutions. As IoT solutions proliferate and extend across markets in many applications security and privacy will have to be included — at the appropriate level.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What enterprise IoT will look like in 2016
http://www.cio.com/article/3017403/internet-of-things/welcome-to-the-enterprise-of-things-an-analysis-of-enterprise-iot-in-2016.html
It was an interesting year for the enterprise IoT space in 2015 and 2016 promises to be even better. In 2015 we witnessed the launch of brand new IoT platforms by major software vendors and startups as well as an increasing activity of consolidation and M&A in the space. As a result, 2016 should bring us a lot of activity in enterprise IoT initiatives. This article presents a taxonomy of the enterprise IoT market in 2016 that will help organizations evaluating this type of solutions and platforms.
Key developments of enterprise IoT in 2015
2015 was an incredibly active year for IoT in the enterprise. The emergence of new platforms and solutions, the decline of others and the increase of M&A activity dominated the headlines of 2015. In general, 2015 can be seen as a year in which the enterprise community have come to accept IoT as one of the trends that will be pivotal in the next decade of enterprise software. Trying to summarize the enterprise IoT space in 2015 in five points is not easy
Big PaaS embrace IoT
GE is all in
Enterprise IoT startups are emerging everywhere
Active M&A environment
Evaluating enterprise IoT solutions in 2016: A market taxonomy
As enterprises start their IoT efforts in 2016 they will be faced with an overwhelming number of options for technologies and platforms. However, there are 5 main categories that effectively covered most of the enterprise IoT technologies in the space and can help enterprises in their evaluation of enterprise IoT technologies.
PaaS IoT platforms
As mentioned in a previous section, the incumbent PaaS vendors currently include complete IoT platforms as part of their offerings. This model allows enterprises to build IoT solutions that not only leverage IoT specific services, such as device management or stream analytics, but also take advantage of infrastructure services included in PaaS solutions.
Some Relevant Examples: AWS IoT, Azure IoT Suite, Salesforce IoT Cloud and IBM IoT Foundation are some of the PaaS IoT platforms that could be relevant to enterprises in 2016.
Standalone IoT platforms
This category includes some of the early IoT platforms in the space which focus on providing backend and infrastructure capabilities to enterprise IoT solutions. Differently from the PaaS IoT group, these solutions are commercialized as independent IoT platforms with no defined dependencies on any PaaS solution.
Some Relevant Vendors: Xively, ThingWorx and Jasper are some examples of standalone IoT platforms that should be relevant in the enterprise in 2016.
IoT infrastructure services
Security, stream messaging, and device management are some of the examples of infrastructure capabilities that are key to enterprise IoT solutions. Very often, enterprises don’t require a complete IoT platform, but rather need a specific service that enables a handful of capabilities in a very effective way. This role has been fulfilled by IoT infrastructure service solutions that focus on enabling a single, or a small number of, related infrastructure services in IoT solutions
Some Relevant Examples: PubNub, Mocana and Robomq are some relevant providers of standalone IoT capabilities.
IoT apps or vertical solutions
Like any other relevant enterprise software trend, IoT will produce a number of industry-specific solutions that can become successful by themselves. As a matter of fact, we are already seeing some of the big industrial players trying to address mainstream IoT scenarios like asset management, vehicle telemetry, smart energy consumption, etc., with specific IoT hardware-software solutions.
Some Relevant Examples: GE Asset Performance Management, Intel’s In-Vehicle Solutions and Cisco’s Connected Factory are some of the relevant examples of industry-specific IoT solutions.
IoT data services
Data, not hardware, is the crown jewel of enterprise IoT. Processing, analyzing, and taking action based on the high volumes of data produced in an IoT infrastructure are the ultimate value drivers of enterprise IoT solutions. As a result, enterprise IoT solutions typically include data processing and analytic capabilities in areas such as stream data processing, real time analytics, etc.
Some Relevant Examples: Apache Storm, Spark Streaming, AWS Kinesis and Azure Stream Analytics.
Will IoT go mainstream in 2016?
I believe 2016 won’t be the year that starts the mainstream adoption of IoT technologies in the enterprise. The market remains incredibly crowded and most enterprises still haven’t developed the necessary level of knowledge and awareness of enterprise IoT solutions to become adopters
Tomi Engdahl says:
We need Cloud Foundry for IoT
http://www.cio.com/article/3070414/internet-of-things/we-need-cloud-foundry-for-iot.html
Cloud Foundry has become the default standard for private and hybrid PaaS solutions in the enterprise. The enterprise IOT space offers a unique set of opportunities for Cloud Foundry to become one of the most relevant platforms to power the new generation of industrial solutions.
The Enterprise IoT platform is beyond crowded these days. Telcos, enterprise software vendors, device manufacturers, and IoT startups are some of the groups trying to dominate the enterprise IoT platform space. From all these groups, the platform as a service (PaaS) providers seem to be gaining a lot of momentum among enterprise customers. Solutions like AWS IoT Hub, Azure IoT Suite or IBM IoT Foundation provide an extremely robust set of IoT capabilities for most enterprises. However, those platforms still have two major limitations in terms of support for on-premise environments and portability across different platforms.
Unlike many other infrastructure areas, the IoT space still hasn’t had the emergence of an open platform model that can be adapted across different infrastructures. In the broader PaaS space, Cloud Foundry has become the most popular open PaaS model supported in both cloud and on-premise environments. With IoT services becoming a first class citizen in PaaS solutions, we believe the enterprise IoT space can greatly benefit from a Cloud Foundry for IoT model.
Cloud Foundry for IoT can be a catalyst in the enterprise
The value proposition of a Cloud Foundry for IoT model may seem trivial. It’s not hard to imagine how this type of architecture will help to improve interoperability, openness, and portability of IoT solutions. Even though the Cloud Foundry for IoT model appears highly applicable in the consumer market, we believe there are some very specific capabilities that will make it very popular in the enterprise.
Open source
Enterprise IoT solutions are notorious for requiring significant levels of customization.
Infrastructure independence
Many enterprise IoT solution require on-premise or hybrid deployments.
Extensibility
Complementary to the open source model, the highly extensible nature of a Cloud Foundry for IoT solution will facilitate its adaptability to complex enterprise scenarios. The lack of extensibility still remains a major challenge for most enterprise platforms.
A complete PaaS at your disposal
Similar to the cloud IoT platforms, an IoT solution based on Cloud Foundry can benefit from dozens of cloud services already existing in Cloud Foundry.
Imagining Cloud Foundry for IoT
Defining a Cloud Foundry for IoT solution can be as simple as incorporating IoT native services into the Cloud Foundry infrastructure.
group of capabilities that could be relevant to a Cloud Foundry for IoT model:
Protocols: Support for IoT specific protocols such as MQTT, XMPP or CoApp will be an essential element to improve Cloud Foundry interoperability with different smart devices and other IoT solutions.
Device gateway: In order to be relevant in industrial IoT settings, a Cloud Foundry for IoT model should provide capabilities to register, manage, and monitor a large number of IoT devices.
Messaging: Even though Cloud Foundry already includes support for sophisticated messaging technologies such as NATS or RabbitMQ, IoT solutions will be required to extend those capabilities to support large throughput of messages in a scalable manner.
Stream analytics: Adding stream analytic capabilities to Cloud Foundry will facilitate the executing of queries over real time streams of data generated by IoT devices in an enterprise topology.
Security: Message encryption, signing, as well as access control and authentication are key capabilities of enterprise IoT solutions. Even though Cloud Foundry already provides sophisticated security capabilities, those should be extended for IoT environments.
Device SDKs: Providing Cloud Foundry SDKs for different device toolkits such as Raspberry Pi or Arduino will be key to improve the adoption of the platform within core IoT developer communities as well as device manufacturers.
It’s already happening: GE Predix
GE Predix is a PaaS model for the industrial enterprise. Based on Cloud Foundry, GE Predix adds a new group of services and capabilities relevant to IoT industrial solutions. Specifically, GE Predix extends Cloud Foundry with IoT specific services such as asset management, device security, real time analytics, and other capabilities relevant in IoT. By many metrics, GE Predix can be considered the most successful IoT platform in the market claiming $6B in revenue last year.
https://www.ge.com/digital/predix
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 Upcoming Healthcare Trends & Challenges Triggered by the IOT Explosion
http://intelligentsystemssource.com/3-upcoming-healthcare-trends-challenges-triggered-by-the-iot-explosion/?utm_source=IIoT+Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=June&utm_campaign=IIot
Wouldn’t life be much easier if your aging mother’s pill bottle could notify you every time she forgot taking her medicine? 0r your bed could send the information about your sick spouse’s poor quality of sleep to your family physician before she is even fully awake? Welcome to the IOT explosion!
With the budding “Internet of Things” revolution, every object with a sensor will be able to send alerts and transfer data. Smart gadgets will gain popularity in the market and life will become much easier and effortless. Let’s take a look at how the IOT will change the existing healthcare processes in the next two years and make them more efficient and safe:
1. IOT Will Encourage A Healthier Lifestyle Patients will be able to skip the wait time and get instant access to healthcare practitioners without pulling up WebMD on their Smartphone’s. The rise of telehealth apps will eliminate the need to visit the doctor and allow the medical practitioners to be more efficient in encouraging a healthier approach.
2. Remote Monitoring of Health Will Lead to Efficient Patient Care Medical equipment such as fetal monitors, pacemakers, IV pumps, and cardioverter defibrillator devices will be securely connected to monitor patient records without needing human intervention. Physicians will get the benefit of accurate diagnostics with real-time insights and patients will receive improved quality of care.
3. Wearable Health Devices Will Lead To Cost Reduction Implant devices, skin patches and fitness trackers will send instant alerts to the cardiologist or the general practitioner every time a patient’s heart rate becomes irregular or the blood sugar levels exceed the permissible limit. The constant monitoring of wearable health devices will deliver tremendous value to patients suffering from chronic diseases by facilitating timely intervention before the condition becomes chronic and invites serious consequences. Clinical trials are already underway on heart failure patients
The Confusion Created By the BYOD Culture Smart devices are just one aspect of the whole IOT revolution but who is connected to the patient’s data and how the process is being handled play a vital role in determining the quality of patient care which is likely to suffer due to data breaches.
Inconsistencies Created Due to a Mega Flow of Medical Data Consistency is critical in the healthcare setting and this makes it mandatory to maintain the established medical protocols even with the entry of IOT. Wearable healthcare devices coming in from different vendors can raise questions of propriety and create inconsistencies.
The Need to Secure Sensitive Patient DataThe health care industry generates a massive amount of sensitive patient data on a daily basis which is easily accessible by cyber-attackers. The increasing use of internet connected devices will give rise to a number of entry points and end points into the data center which makes the security of data a prime concern for medical practitioners.
IOT in healthcare has potential benefits provided you establish a failsafe infrastructure with an advanced virtualization monitoring tool
Tomi Engdahl says:
Air Quality Sensors in Every Classroom
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/18/air-quality-sensors-in-every-classroom/
One of the first electronics projects for the aspiring hobbyist is wiring a sensor of some sort to a microcontroller, and then doing something useful with the new information. [Brock] has taken this type of gateway project and turned it into a way to get his students involved and familiar with electronics. His take on an air quality meter accomplishes both of these goals, and hopefully helps turn all of his students into the next generation of hackers.
The bill of materials is pretty straightforward. Instead of the go-to Arduino, [Brock] has gone with a Particle Photon which has the added benefits of various wireless connectivity options. The air quality sensor is a Shinyei PP42ns which interfaces easily with the Photon.
https://airquality406.wordpress.com/
So please take this project and make it your own. Improve the sensitivity, make a better housing, use the sensor to test the air quality in your community. Data leads to improved decisions so start collecting data.
Getting meaningful data from this sensor is not straightforward,
if you are more interested in the sensor itself read this:
http://irq5.io/2013/07/24/testing-the-shinyei-ppd42ns/
Measuring the Pickle Jr. – a modified PPD42 with an attached fan.
https://indiaairquality.com/2014/12/14/measuring-the-pickle-jr-a-modified-ppd42-with-an-attached-fan/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Easy DIY Telemetry Goes the Distance
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/18/easy-diy-telemetry-goes-the-distance/
[Paweł Spychalski] wrote in to tell us about some experiments he’s been doing, using cheap 433 MHz HC-12 radio units as a telemetry radio for his quadcopter.
In this blog post, he goes over the simple AT command set, and some of the limitations of the HC-12 part. Then he takes it out for a spin on his quadcopter, and finds out that his setup is good for 450 meters in an open field. Finally, he ties the radio into his quad’s telemetry system and tethers the other end to his cellphone through a Bluetooth unit for a sweet end-to-end system that only set him back around $20 and works as far out as 700 meters.
HC-12 433MHz wireless serial communication module configuration
https://quadmeup.com/hc-12-433mhz-wireless-serial-communication-module-configuration/
HC-12 are cheap 433MHz wireless serial port communication modules with a range up to 1800m in open space. Each costs about $5 when bought from China, and 2 of them can create wireless UART link that can be used, for example, to transfer telemetry data from UAV. Or drive IoT device. Or connect sensors. Or whatever else one can think of.
It is based on SI4463 RF chip, has build in microcontroller, can be configured using AT commands and allows to use external antenna. Working frequency is divided into 100 channels starting from 433,4MHz up to 473,0MHz with 400kHz channel separation. Maximum output power is 100mW (20dBm) and receiver sensitivity differs from -117dBm to -100dBm, depending on transmission speed. It accepts 3,2V-5,5V power supply and can be used with 3.3V and 5V UART voltage devices (3.3V safe).
HC-12 433MHz RF serial module range test
https://quadmeup.com/hc-12-433mhz-rf-serial-module-range-test/
DIY wireless telemetry link for UAV
https://quadmeup.com/diy-wireless-telemetry-link-for-uav/
Telemetry link between UAV (drone, airplane, boat) and laptop/mobile/ground station device can be very useful. Not only to get current drone position, altitude or battery level, but also, when wireless link provides such a possibility, to update drone parameters in-flight. Some radio links, like OpenLRS provides such a possibility out of the box. They include transparent serial bridge and almost any kind of device can use it to communicate with flight controller. Unfortunately, most RC radio systems lacks this functionality and additional telemetry links have to be used. Like SiK Telemetry Radio or 3DR commercial version of it.
My objectives were:
433MHz since it is legal in my country
has to allow to use my phone with EZ-GUI, since I do not like to carry my notebook to an airfield
as cheap as possible
To satisfy those objectives I’ve decided as follows:
HC-12 433MHz wireless serial modules will be used. They are cheap, pair costs less than $11
Since I would prefer not to have my Android phone cable connected to any external devices, HC-06 Bluetooth module will be used to connect to mobile phone or tablet. Once again, it is cheap, single module costs between $4 and $5
My telemetry link is build from two parts:
Mobile – it is attached to drone and consists of single HC-12 and antenna connected to flight controller (SPRacingF3 running INAV)
Ground Station – it acts as Wireless-to-Serial-to-Bluetooth bridge
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM’s Watson allows passengers to communicate with Olli, a self-driving minibus from Local Motors, using natural language
IBM’s Watson makes a move into self-driving cars with Olli, a minibus from Local Motors
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/16/ibms-watson-makes-a-move-into-self-driving-cars-with-olli-a-minibus-from-local-motors/
IBM Watson, the company’s AI platform, is powering services in Olli — an electric-powered vehicle that can carry up to 12 people designed by Local Motors, a car maker based out of Arizona that uses newer technologies like 3D printing to bring down the cost of making cars on a low-volume basis.
“IBM technology, including IBM Watson or IBM Watson IoT technology, does not control, navigate or drive Olli. Rather, the IBM Watson capabilities of Olli will help to improve the passenger experience and allow natural interaction with the vehicle,” the company said.
“Passengers will be able to interact conversationally with Olli while traveling from point A to point B,” IBM says, “discussing topics about how the vehicle works, where they are going, and why Olli is making specific driving decisions.” Other features will be asking Olli for suggestions of restaurants to eat or local landmarks. But not driving itself.
“IBM is excited to work with Local Motors to infuse IBM Watson IoT cognitive computing capabilities into Olli”‘
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Comparison of IoT Gateway Protocols: MQTT and Modbus
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/a-comparison-of-iot-gateway-protocols-mqtt-and-modbus?utm_campaign=IHI-IoT-Commercial-Q2_16&utm_medium=Syndication&utm_source=Taboola&utm_content=&utm_term=&&utm_term=cbsinteractive-zdnet&utm_content=IoT+Gateway+Protocols%3A+Modbus+vs.+MQTT
The Internet of Things (IoT) isn’t just about new technologies: It’s also about integration with older technologies, a key attribute of which is communication. The available methods of communication are diverse, however, and numerous protocols play a role in bringing the plethora of “things” to the Internet. This article explores two complementary protocols for the IoT: Modbus, a local protocol for short-distance device attachment, and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT), a scalable Internet protocol that enables global communication for the IoT.
Modbus is a serial communications protocol that first appeared in 1979 and is the de facto standard protocol for connecting industrial devices. MQTT appeared 20 years later, but bringing these two protocols together gives deeply embedded devices the scale and connectivity of the Internet.
Since it first appeared in 1979, Modbus has evolved into a broad set of protocols over a variety of physical links (for example, RS-485). At its core, Modbus is a serial communications protocol that follows a master–slave model. A master sends a request to a slave device, and the slave returns a response.
the simplicity of the Modbus protocol, but its openness as a protocol has popularized it as a de facto communication protocol for industrial or SCADA systems.
MQTT is an open, lightweight machine-to-machine protocol designed for IoT interactions. An MQTT network contains an MQTT broker, which mediates interactions among MQTT agents. The agents are publishers, which publish information for consumption by subscribers
The requirements for MQTT are minimal as it’s designed for resource-constrained embedded devices. In addition to a minimal footprint, MQTT was designed for communication efficiency — even over low-bandwidth networks — and minimal overhead (compared to protocols such as HTTP). Over 3G networks, MQTT throughput has been measured at 93 times faster than Representational State Transfer (REST) over HTTP.
MQTT implements a publish/subscribe model with a minimal set of methods
MQTT methods are defined as:
Connect – Establish a connection to an MQTT broker.
Disconnect – Tear down a connection from an MQTT broker.
Publish – Publish a topic to an MQTT broker.
Subscribe – Subscribe to a topic from an MQTT broker.
Unsubscribe – Unsubscribe to a topic from an MQTT broker.
Note the structure of the topic being shared here. It looks similar to a file system hierarchy, which simplifies the organization of topics. This hierarchical form of resources is also popular in protocol architectures such as REST.
MQTT even allows a form of wildcards to simplify the subscription process.
MQTT permits the definition of quality of service (QoS). Three levels of QoS exist in MQTT:
QoS 0. This level means “at most once” delivery (best effort). Messages are not acknowledged, which makes this a “fire and forget” approach.
QoS 1. This level means “at least once” deliver. A subscriber may get the message more than once, but the receiver is allowed to acknowledge receipt.
QoS 2. The slowest but highest guarantee QoS level is 2. QoS 2 means “only once” and involves a four-stage handshake for delivery. This level is the slowest but also the safest of the QoS levels.
With the growing popularity of MQTT as an enabler of IoT, you’ll find MQTT in open source apps and a number of products.
MQTT and Modbus help advance the IoT in a complementary way. Using Modbus as a local interface to manage devices and MQTT as a global protocol to expand the reach of those devices’ data, each serves an important role.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Security Calls for Action: Universal Standards
We’re smart but are we safe?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1329124&
Industry needs to develop universal standards for designing safety, privacy into connected devices, before government regulations force it upon us.
As consumers start to connect more and more aspects of their lives to the Internet, a troubling concern arises—if every part of our lives become “smart,” are we safe? Cisco Systems predicted that there will be 50 billion connected devices by 2020, which means there will be 50 billion ways a hacker can infiltrate a consumer’s network and steal their personal data.
In all the rush to design groundbreaking IoT innovations and release new products, two important factors have been pushed to the back burner – security and privacy. As we’ve seen in recent headlines of hacked cars to compromised Internet-connected baby monitors, the implications are real and present.
In my earlier post, “IoT Security Calls for Action,” I outlined ways that engineers can address the security challenges of IoT development through a combination of interoperability, education and proper design. To take this discussion a step further, two key areas warrant more investigation. First, how can we create universal standards and frameworks for the developer community? Second, how can we design with security and privacy in mind from the initial design and system architecture to provisioning for system updates into deployed products?
Creating universal standards for compatibility and security
Standardization has long been an issue countless industries have had to face.
When it comes to the introduction of Internet-connected devices to the market, similar issues arise. The industry is fast growing, with many players entering the field using completely different playbooks as they develop their products. To complicate matters, IoT solutions and devices are usually not just one product, but a myriad of systems that include hardware and software from multiple vendors. The security of the overall system is only as strong as its weakest link, and a multi-vendor environment can open up a host of additional vulnerabilities.
Today’s connected device developers find themselves in a similar boat when it comes to security. IoT devices are coming onto the market in all shapes and sizes, and when it comes to a gas range stove, state-of-the-art refrigerator or self-driving car, designing for security can become incredibly complex. For example, if a consumer is having trouble updating the software for their washer and dryer and needs to bring it into a local retail store for an update, it is a completely different situation than if they are having trouble with their lightbulb or alarm clock. What if a vulnerability on thousands of products is detected? The mobile carrier industry dealt with this difficult situation just this year with the Android Stagefright vulnerability, which affected more than 950 million Android devices.
And it’s not just security that’s a growing concern for consumers and corporations alike, it’s privacy too. If everything becomes “smart,” the device environment gathers a lot of information about people inhabiting the space and interacting with the network.
IoT Security Calls for Action
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1326505
To enable the full potential of the Internet of Things, engineers need to address the security challenge through a combination of interoperability, education and good design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT and the four reasons why licensed spectrum technologies have been worth the wait
https://www.u-blox.com/en/iot-and-four-reasons-why-licensed-spectrum-technologies-have-been-worth-wait
Several wireless technologies have emerged to enable the huge array of IoT applications that are set to explode. And while there are many differences between them, they can roughly be separated into two discrete groups: proprietary solutions operating in an unlicensed spectrum and those operating in a licensed spectrum.
Here we take a quick look at these and examine some of the key reasons why it is worth waiting for licensed spectrum standards.
Among the first Low‑Power Wide‑Area (LPWAN) technologies to market were the proprietary standards of Sigfox and LoRa. Sigfox, developed by the French company of the same name, uses unlicensed spectrum (industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio bands) to carry the small amounts of data required for IoT, transmitting up to 140 12‑byte messages per day over distances of about 30‑50km in rural areas and 3‑10km for urban areas. Distance for outdoor objects in line of sight can travel over 1,000km.
Similarly, LoRa (developed by Semtech, and backed by an industry alliance) promises the ability to deliver national networks of IoT devices, for both infrastructure and personal devices, with secure communications. LoRa also transmits over large distances at data rates ranging from 0.3 to 50kbps. (Data rates are set for each end device individually to maximize battery life and network capacity.)
One advantage these LPWAN technologies have over licensed spectrum solutions is that they hit the market early. Some, however, are drawing parallels to the now “highly niche” 4G cellular standard, WiMax.
“We now see a similar discussion happening around Sigfox, LoRa, and other alternative Low‑Power Wide‑Area (LPWA) access technologies for the Internet of Things (IoT). The availability of 3GPP Rel. 12 Cat.0 technology with power saving mode is a big step forward, [however] the key step will be the availability of 3GPP Rel. 13 technologies.”
Licensed spectrum standards
Narrowband IoT (NB‑IoT), on the other hand can be deployed in‑band and use the resource blocks within a normal LTE carrier as well as those in the guard‑band. Additionally, it can also be used “standalone” to enable deployments in dedicated spectrum.
In September 2015, the 3GPP announced it as part of its Release 13, saying the standard has “very broad industry support”.
And while LoRa and Sigfox launched first, NB‑IoT technology is already being rolled out in pre‑standardization deployments, with a terminal cost of only a few dollars, and using a simple battery that lasts for years, enabling turn on‑and‑go systems that need no local infrastructure.
Licensed vs proprietary – why a 3GPP standard has been worth waiting for
Quality of service
Higher transmit power
Costs
Firmware upgrades
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things that Really Matter
https://www.u-blox.com/en/internet-things-really-matter
Early examples of the “potential” of the Internet of Things (IoT) patently failed to inspire enthusiasm worthy of (what has been rightly termed) the fourth industrial revolution. Prefixing everyday items with “smart” quickly became ubiquitous, with “smart” toasters and kettles negating the apparently now unacceptable effort of journeying far into one’s kitchen and manually flicking a switch. This ill‑considered trend of labelling everything and anything as “smart”, for me, clouds the true potential of IoT.
valuable potential as the Internet of Things…that Really Matter. So what really matters? What applications of the IoT will genuinely benefit our lives? The list grows longer by the day though the majority can be categorized neatly into the connected vehicles, connected city and connected industry.
Connected Vehicles
V2I (vehicle to infrastructure) allows two‑way communication between the vehicle and its surroundings.
V2V (vehicle to vehicle) creates a world where our vehicles communicate with one another, each employing the collective pool of data gathered by a daisy‑chain or mesh of vehicles to autonomously make decisions to improve our safety, whether that’s maintaining safe speeds, distances, or reacting to an accident instantly a mere few vehicles ahead.
V2P (vehicle to pedestrian) will protect those without the luxury of a metal shield, our pedestrians. Our vehicles will gain an awareness of pedestrians within close proximity of its travelling path and alert the driver, or take control from the driver altogether, to avoid a collision.
Connected City
In our connected city, the costs of failure are high. The emergency services will be revolutionized, shortening response times and providing instant access to relevant data gleaned from local environmental sensors and closed‑circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, to save more lives.
Smart metering will alleviate the manual task of collecting readings by using the cloud to get that data to the utility company
Narrowband IoT (NB‑IoT) will enable a nationwide roll‑out to the most isolated areas
Smart parking infrastructure is already coming to fruition reducing congestion.
Connected Industry
Increasingly labelled Industrial IoT (IIoT) or Industrie 4.0, the connected industry is already revolutionizing the way we work, wherever that may be. In heavy industry, connected machinery enabled to organize its own preventative maintenance averts catastrophic failure, while gathering real‑time data on the manufacturing floor drives plant efficiency improvements that reduce operational costs and environmental impact.
Agriculture is rarely considered to exist at the forefront of technological innovation, though with an estimated 9.1 billion mouths to feed by 20501, employing connected sensors to monitor local environmental conditions provides the data critical for optimal use of land
A reduction in operational costs, improved productivity and potential new revenue streams with the connected industry all naturally excite industry leaders.
nearly two decades before “IoT” or the more prosaic term “M2M” hit the headlines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s Dash Button Exemplifies IoT Laziness
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/news/amazons-dash-button-exemplifies-iot-laziness/
What to do with all the power of the internet coursing through your home? Order laundry detergent.
Alright, so maybe the $4.99 is a small price to pay for convenience. There’s still the fact that no one wants to stick giant branded pieces of plastic all over their house. Do I want a Tide logo screaming at me from my washing machine? Should I be assaulted by a Gatorade logo every time I walk into the kitchen? Do visitors really deserve to know I’m still eating KRAFT Mac & Cheese from a box? (Though I do love that there’s essentially an emergency button for running out of pasta.) The entire thing feels like a marketing ploy.
This wasn’t really what anyone was hoping for with the IoT revolution. Thermostats that can adjust themselves according to whether we’re home or not, sure, but a button that reorders dish soap? Not super thrilling and nowhere near as innovative or as useful as the IoT should be. In another few years, most appliances will be IoT-activated anyway and the Dash Button will be relegated to the land of Trivia Crack answers. It seems like Amazon is pandering both to its merchants and to the ephemeral quality of novelty.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Mobile phones are our history, not our future’: Nokia on where next for hardware
Nokia’s hardware chief reveals what to expect in health, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things
http://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-phones-are-our-history-not-our-future-nokia-on-where-next-for-hardware/
In April, Nokia announced its acquisition of French digital health company Withings for €170m. So why yes to health and no to smartphones?
“This is a vision that we’ve believed in and we’ve pursued, over the last two years. We’ve been developing [health] technology and solutions inside Nokia, experimenting both on the regulated and unregulated side of health, to see what we can bring to the market. As we developed some interesting technologies, it became clear that we were somewhat behind in the marketplace and we needed a partner that saw the world as we saw it. Acquiring Withings marked the start of the exciting new chapter in Nokia’s history and makes Nokia a consumer brand once again,” Haidamus said.
Depending on who you listen to, the digital health market is set to be worth between $61bn and $233bn by 2020, with devices for monitoring patients around $25bn. Withings already has a number of digital health products, including some rather pretty smartwatches, blood pressure and baby monitors, and some smart scales that track how fast blood travels through the aorta and uses the data as a measure of heart health.
According to Haidamus, the deal is “a reverse takeover” of Nokia’s existing digital health business by Withings. “Withings’ CEO Cédric Hutchings is “going to be integrating the Nokia teams within his teams and driving the bus without any ambiguity,”
Despite Nokia’s long heritage in hardware and its history robust-yet-eye-pleasing industrial design, Haidamus says Nokia is happy to let Withings plough ahead with its own look-and-feel.
“I believe in [Hutchings'] vision, the designs he’s produced look exactly like the designs we would have produced
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Confidence to Excel in the Digital Economy
http://www.securityweek.com/confidence-excel-digital-economy
There’s nothing more exciting than a team that seems to overcome the odds to win a championship. Is it the coaching, the training, or determination of the players? Whatever the reason, their confidence builds and allows them to push forward and excel.
Like a championship tournament, we see in today’s intensely competitive global environment startups and agile organizations come out of nowhere, and surprise incumbents with digital business models, products, and services. A convergence of multiple technology innovations that use connectivity – such as the cloud, big data and analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) – allows them to move quickly and take advantage of new opportunities. Organizations must adapt to this competitive environment, or risk being displaced.
Successful organizations compete and thrive in this new era by recognizing that digital transformation requires a strong cybersecurity foundation. Unfortunately, many organizations are missing out because they lack a comprehensive security program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Another interesting looking Lua IoT platform:
WiFiMCU
Design for IoT
Simplicity、Reliability：STM32F4+WiFi(Broadcom)+Lua
http://www.wifimcu.com/
WiFiMCU is developed based on EMW3165. Run the Lua script directly; operate hardware resource; achieve product prototypes. EMW3165 is a low-power embedded WIFI module, which is developed by the Shanghai MXCHIP Technology Co., Ltd. It incorporates a WiFi RF-Chip and a microcontroller based on STM Cortex-M4. The WiFi module includes a “self-hosted” WiFi network library and application components. In addition, It also provides 2M bytes of out-chip flash, 512K bytes of on-chip flash, 128K bytes of RAM and a rich peripheral resources.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: BLE Beacon Library
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/21/hackaday-prize-entry-ble-beacon-library/
While faking BLE advertising beacons using an nRF24L01+ module is nothing new, it’s become a heck of a lot easier now that [Pranav Gulati] has written some library code and a few examples for it.
[Pranav]’s work is based on [Dmitry Grinberg]’s epic bit-banging BLE research that we featured way back in 2013. And while the advertisement channel in BLE is limited in the amount of data it can send, a $1 nRF24 module and a power-thrifty microcontroller would be great for a battery-powered device that needs to send small amount of data infrequently for a really long time.
BLE beacons from 1$ nrf24L01 modules
Using the humble nrf24L01+ modules as BLE beacons to send and receive BLE advertisements .
https://hackaday.io/project/12036-ble-beacons-from-1-nrf24l01-modules
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adafruit IO
https://io.adafruit.com/
Here at Adafruit, we sell all of these amazing components, but we couldn’t find a good way to interact with them over the internet. There are certainly a lot of great services out there for datalogging, or communicating with your microcontroller over the web, but these services are either too complicated to get started, or they aren’t particularly fun to use. So, we decided to experiment with our own system, and that is how Adafruit IO got started.
The API is the core of the system, but with only an API, it’s not that fun to use. We’ve built a few basic client libraries to simplify working with the API. We also have a dashboard with a few widgets that allow easy 2-way interaction with your devices.
Adafruit IO Basics: NeoPixel Controller
Control NeoPixels with Adafruit IO sliders
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-io-basics-neopixel-controller
The purpose of the Adafruit IO Basics series is to give you an overview of all of the components of AIO and show you how you would use them with hardware.
One neat feature of AIO is that it is built around a responsive design. When you create a dashboard in your desktop or laptop browser, you can load up the same dashboard on your smartphone. This makes it handy to interact with projects remotely.
For this project, you will need an Arduino, an Adafruit CC3000 Arduino shield, a NeoPixel 16 ring (any Adafruit NeoPixel device will work here), a breadboard and some wire.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cumulocity
https://www.cumulocity.com/
Connect your things and innovate your business
Cumulocity is the leading independent Device and Application Management Internet of Things (IoT) Platform since 2010. Our Internet of Things Platform connects and manages your machines effortlessly, so you can focus on your business’s value adding activities.
Our IoT Platform is open, application centric and free-to-try which allows you to prove your end-to-end business concept quickly with a handful of things and rapidly scale your deployment to over 20 global data centres as you connect millions with telco grade reliability.
Over any network
Runs on all networks, mobile or fixed.
No need to open your firewalls.
No need to purchase additional VPN services.
Reduce your mobile traffic using SmartREST by 80% over other HTTP APIs.
Plug and play
No matter if it’s a new type of device or just an additional device: Just connect and go. Devices are automatically online with all supported features. No configuration required.
Certified Devices
http://cumulocity.com/dev-center/
Below is a selection of devices that are used with Cumulocity. Many more Embedded Linux, Posix or Java-compliant devices will work just as well, see below. Watch this space for more information!
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT – Discover the applications!
Internet of Things, IoT, internet of things, the Internet of Things is a business enabler! IoT: enables organizations to find new areas of business, accelerate the sales of existing products, solutions and services, and differentiation in the market even more customer-centric solution.
Construction industry
Construction industry can take advantage of the IoT to generate new business. Sensors can be placed on structures, which allow the state of health of the building to be monitored.
Property owners and operators of sensors will view the health status of the property, and they can be used to predict maintenance activities and identify possible construction errors.
Property maintenance can make use of IoT to optimize their own performance, as well as to provide customers with new services.
Logistics and Waste Management
Logistics IoT as a follow-up can be used for cars and freight movements.
Waste Management, in turn, can take advantage of the IoT as a follow-up and optimization, allowing the correct time waste management need to waste collection and recycling.
IoT Each project has its own character.
Onregon IoT project model consists of four stages.
1. IoT – planning day (one day)
2. Technical workshop (one day)
3. IoT pilot / prototype (5-10 days)
4. To production
The pilot project and the prototype is successful at best a few days of work.
Source: http://blogi.onrego.fi/iot-k%C3%A4yt%C3%A4nn%C3%B6n-esimerkkej%C3%A4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia intends seriously to health technology
Nokia’s recent Withings shopping astonished many, but the company is really.
Nokia Technologies to jointly develop HUS, and now with the University of Medicine of new remote healthcare solutions for patients. First project is to develop a remote monitoring patients’ devices.
The so-called. Digital health care market is believed to grow by 20,200 by 61-233 billion dollars. Large fork explains the difficulties to define a new area accurately, but all the same the market potential is huge.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4620:nokia-aikoo-tosissaan-terveysteknologiaan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
If you ask 10 people what The Internet of Things means you are likely to get 10 different answers
ranging from Big Data to the connected car and autonomous driving. Still, one common denominator
remains: The Internet of Things relies on products that are physically connected to the outside world.
Be it wired or wireless, without this connection the Internet of Things will not exist.
The wireless technologies enabling the Internet of Things can be roughly divided into 3 groups though
with some overlap:
• Cellular, meaning technologies evolved from mobile telephony
• Non-cellular, meaning technologies derived from standards such as Bluetooth or WLAN
• IoT specific, meaning technologies developed specifically with IoT in mind
http://www.anritsu.com | 3
The optimal choice of technology or combination of technologies depends on the use case of the
end product. Most IoT solutions are projected to be relatively close range connected, typically tens
of meters at most. These products will not benefit from a long range Wide Area Network connection
and will likely use non-cellular technologies such as Bluetooth Low Energy or Zigbee or possibly the
point-to-point connections envisioned in the future for 5G. Longer range connections can be provided
by cellular or low power WAN technologies such as LoRa, NB-IOT (a 4G LTE derivative) or 6LoWPAN.
The use cases for IoT reach from the bottom of the sea into space.
The testing of IoT devices does not have to be all that
complex. Wireless IoT technologies are many but the
production testing for all of them is handled in a very
similar manner. This means that a huge portion of the
production test needs of the wireless IoT device world can
be handled with one single solution: The Anritsu MT8870A.
Source: https://pages.anritsu-emearesponse.com/rs/937-UWP-683/images/Manufacturing_the_IoT.pdf?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0dJNU56UTJOekV3WTJFNSIsInQiOiI4N0p6dDdxME9iK1lLcnFSZWRzZmJUY1dKK20xMmliYkNaeTM0TUJhY3hZUEtQblF6NTk0UTlySzlDSG1HdlwvR3dFblhFREd5WnNoa2hZMnRrcEVadE9NN0U4VlQ0RXBhMWxvaDBqb2NReHM9In0%3D
Tomi Engdahl says:
The sunlight is sufficient to power IoT device
Internet of Things refers to the public hundreds of millions and even billions of devices that transmit information to the rest of the recovery. Often, these devices located far from the power supply, so you want them to get along for long periods at low batteries. Or, better, powered by solar panels.
Cypress Development Platform is called CYALKIT-E02. It is able to measure the temperature and humidity and send measurement data with bluetooth. The whole package has a diameter of 25 mm.
Solar cell is 15 x 15 mm and it is enough of one hundred lux light intensity operation of the sensor.
Cypress sells this base platform for 49 dollars.
wireless sensor chips market will grow to more than five billion units by 2020.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4622:auringonvalo-riittaa-iot-laitteen-voimaksi&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensors Expo emphasizes embedded and IoT 2.0 sensor integration
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/sensor-ee-perception/4442236/Sensors-Expo-emphasizes-embedded-and-IoT-2-0-sensor-integration?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160621&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160621&elqTrackId=1208637224424d35a4200b69cd4a62db&elq=6355852853774988b974f63e2284cefa&elqaid=32763&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28613
The annual Sensors Expo & Conference will open in Silicon Valley for the first time next week, bringing its classic serving of everything to do with sensors, but with a clear shift in emphasis to a more holistic approach to sensor integration and system design.
host of sensor demos and IoT education and resources, including NXP’s now famous IoT Truck with 120 IoT demos.
Sensors and security are just two of the five key themes for the event this year: Sensing. Powering. Processing. Connecting. Securing.
“Sensors are becoming more integrated systems for the IoT,” he said, “so we’re adding content around the embedded area, as well as education on security and hands-on courses – including kits.”
An exciting fifth symposium, “IoT 2.0 – Sensor Innovation Moves From Smart to Intelligent,” is led by Willard Tu, vice president of business development at DSP Concepts, Inc. The title refers to how sensors have evolved from delivering the basic signals of changing parameters to being highly intelligent enabling elements of the IoT 2.0.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Samsung to invest $1.2B in IoT over 4 years in US, plans to split funds between startups and R&D
Samsung to Invest $1.2 Billion in ‘Internet of Things’ Startups and Research in U.S.
South Korean electronics giant plans to split funds evenly between R&D and other startups
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/samsung-to-invest-1-2-billion-in-internet-of-things-startups-and-research-in-u-s-1466514005-lMyQjAxMTI2NzIwMTcyMjE1Wj
Samsung’s investment will be aimed at a variety of internet-of-things applications, including digital health; “smart machines” such as drones, robots and autonomous vehicles; and companies making software to process the massive data produced by these devices, said Young Sohn, Samsung’s president and chief strategy officer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Convergence is the first clue to the fundamental challenge of IoT design.”
Internet of Things (IoT) designs mesh together several design domains in order to successfully develop a product. Individually, these design domains are challenging. Bringing them all together to create an IoT product can place extreme pressure on design teams.
Source: https://www.mentor.com/tannereda/techpubs/download?id=93223&contactid=1&PC=L&c=2016_06_22_ic_tanner_iot_design_93223_wp_v6
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solve the IT-OT conflict
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/eye-on-iot-/4442244/Solve-the-IT-OT-conflict?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160622&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160622&elqTrackId=8da661df71474c17bf6262d5132fb0a5&elq=17079c94ec1e4c1786bc6184820e94ab&elqaid=32784&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28633
Developers applying the Internet of Things in an industrial or enterprise environment are facing a challenge. The folks installing IoT devices for monitoring of equipment and processes are typically part of operations technology (OT), tasked with making machines and processes more efficient and productive. But the folks who run the company networks the IoT devices might use are the information technology (IT) department, tasked with maintaining the efficiency of operations that depend on applications software. The two often end up in a territorial battle.
Both have reasonable claims. The OT people naturally want to keep control of their data and equipment, both for performing the types of analysis they require as well as to make changes and adjustments to their equipment as their needs evolve. The IT department, on the other hand, wants control in order to ensure that this IoT network doesn’t compromise their primary purpose maintaining the business systems.
A typical response to this conflict has been for OT teams to forego working with the enterprise networks and create their own, independent network instead. But there are some problems with this approach. For one, the synergy benefits and cost efficiency that can come with IoT properly integrated into the enterprise network are lost. Then, too, such independence requires the OT team to take on the challenges of maintaining a network infrastructure and database, which is often outside their experience or area of competence.
There are also challenges associated with storing and analyzing data from disparate IoT devices.
With a choice between cobbling together their own network or wrestling the IT department to maintain control of their sensors and data, the OT team seeking to implement IoT in an enterprise or industrial setting seem bleak. Fortunately, a new alternative is emerging.
a pre-tested system that can handle sensor data from OT applications in a way compatible with the concerns and needs of corporate IT departments.
By normalizing sensor data to NI’s universal data format, the package allows OT teams to store data from a variety of sensors into a common database that it can then access with analysis tools such as LabView. The two departments no longer need to contend for control in order to integrate OT and IT activities, but can get on with gathering, maintaining, and analyzing the kinds of data that enterprises will need from the IoT.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: Reverse GPS
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/22/hackaday-prize-entry-reverse-gps/
There are now hundreds of these 10 cm satellites in orbit, and SatNogs, the winner of the Hackaday Prize a two years ago, gives all these cubesats a global network of ground stations.
There is one significant problem with a global network of satellite tracking ground stations: you need to know the orbit of all these cubesats.
[hornig] is working on a solution to the problem of tracking hundreds of cubesats that is, simply, reverse GPS. Instead of using multiple satellites to determine a position on Earth, this system is using multiple receiving stations on Earth’s surface to determine the orbit of a satellite.
The hardware for [hornig]’s Distributed Ground Station Network is as simple as you would expect. It’s just an RTL-SDR TV tuner USB dongle, a few antennas, a GPS receiver, and a Raspberry Pi connected to the Internet.
The Distributed Ground Station Network
tracking CubeSats faster, anywhere and anytime for everybody!
https://hackaday.io/project/10743-the-distributed-ground-station-network
The Distributed Ground Station Network (DGSN) is a novel network concept of small ground-stations and connected via the internet for performing automatic scans for cubesats and other beacon signals. By correlating the received signal with the precise, GNSS synchronized reception times of at least 5 ground stations, it enables the positioning of the signal’s origin. Thus a global tracking of small satellites becomes possible in this “reverse GPS” mode. It allows mission operators to position and track their small satellites faster after piggy-back commissioning, when the final orbit is yet undefined and could differ from the specified orbit. Furthermore it allows permanent communication in “data-dump” mode. In this mode, DGSN ground-stations relay the received data to the servers and thus to the operator.
Let’s track everything, together!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wake up and listen: Vesper quiescent-sensing MEMS device innovation
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4442252/-Wake-up-and-listen–Vesper-Quiescent-Sensing-MEMS-Device-innovation?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160623&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20160623&elqTrackId=d9d2a455ebe643cdb9a17e3a84e57f91&elq=631c228ccb254eca8cd79952b15c7565&elqaid=32798&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28647
I have a strong belief that the most natural and efficient way to communicate with devices, in the coming of the Internet of Things (IoT), is the human voice. The primary element for this effort to be successful is the microphone and the primary features needed in such a system are low power, small size, rugged construction, and excellent signal-to-noise capability.
Designers, take heart! Your solution is here from Vesper, a privately held piezoelectric MEMS company
Vesper has now demonstrated the first commercially available quiescent-sensing MEMS device, providing designers the possibility of acoustic event-detection devices at virtually zero power draw at just 3 µA of current while in listening mode. This piezoelectric MEMS microphone — VM1010 — will allow designers to advance voice and acoustic event monitoring in their systems.
Matt Crowley, Vesper CEO told me that this quiescent-sensing MEMS microphone is the only device that uses sound energy itself to wake a system from full power-down. It is known that even when fully powered-off, batteries in smartphones and smart speakers naturally dissipate 40-80uA, which is far more current than this device needs.
Even in sleep mode, this microphone preserves its very high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)
This microphone employs a rugged piezoelectric transducer that is immune to dust, water, oils, humidity, particles and other environmental contaminants, making it ideal for deployments outdoors or in kitchens and automobiles.
http://vespermems.com/
Vesper uses piezoelectric materials to create the most reliable and advanced MEMS microphones on the market. This is a major leap over the capacitive MEMS microphones that have dominated the market for over a decade.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Internet of Things will also be in recreational boats
Buster Boats take advantage of the Internet of Things in the new interface that integrates a boat trip computer, charts and entertainment system. DNA data interface to connect to the network intelligence devices.
“The modern consumer expects that the integrated smart devices are also boats that date.
In particular, small boat models boat industry is not, however, kept up with developments, “Buster Boats Product Development Manager Anders Kurtén says.
Buster Q is connected to the Internet DNA M2M interface through. Kurtén according to reliable and complete data connections are a prerequisite for IoT applications can be used on boats.
“The network connection allows, for example, a continuous device software upgrade and download new functionality. It also provides boaters a whole new range of services to developing your imagination is the limit. ”
Source: http://www.taloussanomat.fi/dna/2016/06/21/esineiden-internet-tulee-myos-huviveneisiin/20166633/325
Tomi Engdahl says:
Conference focused on digital transformation, IIoT
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/conference-focused-on-digital-transformation-iiot/8ef59456129ecbab12eadb2238d587e1.html
Showing how IIoT is working in real-world scenarios is especially critical this year. A recent survey of North American manufacturing executives suggests that while investments in data analytics are rising, companies are still grappling to better understand its benefits.
Bosch Rexroth
A survey conducted by KRC Research found the majority of respondents (between 60 and 70%) believe data analytics can help reduce equipment breakdowns and unplanned downtime, as well as reduce supply chain management issues. This is particularly noteworthy because around 40% of the executives see unscheduled downtime and supply chain management issues as the top two threats to maximizing revenue.
At the same time, though, nearly half of the respondents—representing a range of manufacturing industries—said they don’t fully understand the benefits of data analytics, and more than a quarter say more proof is needed to show that data analytics work.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IoT is a maze of communication protocols
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/the-iot-is-a-maze-of-communication-protocols/d1c64d1f5085c2eb9b2ed2f555df5070.html
The Internet of Things (IoT) communication protocols remain an absolute maze, but Beecham Research, an analyst firm, has published a report designed to help users navigate through the chaos.
Machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) analyst house Beecham Research published a report stating that they were aiming to help enterprise companies match their IoT applications to “The most appropriate connectivity services,” a further indication of the variety of options currently available to firms considering IoT projects.
While the report notes that most IoT applications are, “Well covered by traditional cellular connectivity, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth,” it goes onto add that there is growing opportunity for low power wide area (LPWA) technologies—such as LoRa and weightless—which can run IoT applications using very small amounts of data cost effectively and across a large area. These are important points because cost and coverage are often mentioned as serious deficiencies of cellular (4G, 5G) and ZigBee respectively.
It is arguably a sign of a diverse and fragmented market. Beecham’s report calls
for clarity around the technologies and the providers.
Beecham Research CEO Robin Duke-Woolley admitted that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the IoT connectivity conundrum, a recurring trend perhaps given the majority of the more complex IoT deployment rely on an assortment of different protocols.
“The IoT covers an increasingly wide range of applications and there is no ‘one-type-fits-all’ when it comes to connectivity required to enable them,” Duke-Woolley said.
“If this emerging industry is to meet its potential and get anywhere close to the ambitious predictions made by some commentators, it’s time for greater clarity with more focus on the service attributes that IoT applications need,” Duke-Woolley said. “This includes key parameters such as battery life and coverage, rather than focusing on the underlying technologies and what frequency they operate at, for example. Most users are not interested in the technical details—they just want something that works in the most cost-effective way for their applications.”
“We believe that the continuing debate around IoT connectivity technologies rather than services is not helpful for the rapid market development being sought by the IoT industry,”
“Today, many companies are moving to mobile networks (or cellular) to give better control over the IIoT experience,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wall Street Journal:
Sources: dozens of new brands get Dash buttons this week; companies pay $15 for each branded button sold and 15% of each product sale, atop normal commission — Detergent, household-products makers join expansion as they try to stay close to Amazon, but consumer demand for gadgets has been cool
Amazon to Add Dozens of Brands to Dash Buttons, but Do Shoppers Want Them?
Detergent, household-products makers join expansion, as they try to stay close to Amazon, but consumer demand for gadgets has been cool
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/amazon-to-add-dozens-of-brands-to-dash-buttons-but-do-shoppers-want-them-1466970276-lMyQjAxMTE2MTIzNjEyMzY4Wj
Amazon.com Inc. is doubling down on its Dash push-button ordering devices, getting consumer-products makers to invest in the gadgets even amid evidence that consumers are cool to them.
The internet giant this week plans to announce it is adding dozens of new brands to its Dash buttons feature, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the matter.
But fewer than half of people who bought a Dash button since March 2015 have used it to place an actual order, estimates Slice Intelligence, which conducts market research based on emailed consumer receipts. Those consumers who do order make a purchase roughly once every two months, Slice found.
Companies pay Amazon $15 for each button sold and 15% of each Dash product sale, atop the normal commission, which typically ranges from 8% to 15%, the people familiar with the matter said.
Amazon faces competition, too, including from itself. Its Echo and Tap voice-activated virtual assistants allow customers to order a range of products just by saying them aloud, potentially supplanting the Dash buttons.
And at least one startup, Kwik Commerce Ltd., is rolling out buttons of its own.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zero Power Listen-Mode Sensor Debuts
Acoustic sensor uses sound energy to wake up a system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329967&
What if your always-on listening device can be activated simply by voice or noise, without even pressing a button? Better yet, what if a microphone inside the device switches but draws practically zero power? An acoustic “event-detection” device like this — with battery life that spans not months but years — could open a myriad new applications both for consumer electronics and a host of industries.
The thing that makes this scenario possible is “an acoustic sensor that uses sound energy to wake a system from full power-down mode,” explained Matt Crowley, CEO, Vesper.
So, how has Vesper outsmarted the experts?
The secret is piezoelectric technology, said Crowley. “I think others weren’t necessarily looking at that.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting Started with Watson IoT
https://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/ibm/getting-started-with-watson-iot/
Here are three easy steps manufacturers can take today to kick off their IoT transformation.
Step 1: Connect and talk to Watson
Step 2: Mobile notifications
Step 3: Let Watson work its analytic magic
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G, Cellular IoT Step Ahead
Qualcomm demos prototype 5G system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329991&
Qualcomm is showing a prototype 5G base station and terminal in China Mobile’s booth at the Mobile World Congress in Shanghai this week. The FPGA- and DSP-based system is one of many early efforts to test ideas expected to emerge in 3GPP standards that won’t start to gel until 2018.
The news comes on the heels of the 3GPP finalizing standards for an ultra-low power version of LTE for the Internet of Things. With new IoT specs out, support is growing in 3GPP to accelerate the pace of getting out a first phase of 5G standards focusing on mobile broadband applications, likely saving 5G IoT specs and other issues for a follow up second phase, expected about 2020.
To cut latency, 5G also is expected to integrate uplink and downlink communications into unified data frames so that acknowledgements, for example, are automatically sent after transmissions are received.
While the 5G standards won’t start to gel for about two years, the 3GPP finished on June 22 work on its 4G IoT standards, notably Category NB1, formerly known as Cat M2. The spec targets max data rates of 200 Kbits/s over 200 MHz channels, but likely will be used at about 40 Kbit/s average.
Unlike today’s 10Mbit/s Cat 1 and next year’s 1 Mbit/s Cat M1 (also called eMTC), Cat NB1 will not support voice or mobility. The stripped down cellular spec is designed to compete with ultra-low power, low cost options such as Sigfox and LoRa.
Vendors such as Sequans and Qualcomm say they will support the spec with firmware upgrades of existing chips geared for Cat 1 or Cat M.
Cat NB1 can be used with either 2G or 4G spectrum. The 3GPP also formerly ratified Extended Coverage GSM (EC-GSM-IoT) as an IoT option for 3G networks.
The new IoT specs are all part of LTE Release 13. At the recent 3GPP plenary meeting, a Release 14 Work Item was approved, aiming to extend Cat M1 and Cat NB1 capabilities, a Qualcomm spokesperson said.
More than 20 mobile network operators are committed to deploying Cat NB1, according to a cellular trade group.
Today’s LTE Cat 1 modules are emerging at about the same $25-25 prices as the 2G modules they replace with fully certified modems selling for $70-100. Carriers already charge M2M users a wide array of prices from $1 to 10 or more a month based on their data use.
Cat M1 modules are expected to ship by this fall with networks starting to launch by the end of the year. Cat M1 chips are starting to sample and going through certification. They will likely be run at half duplex rates of 300-400 Kbits/second for GPRS-like (2.5-G class) performance, said Miller of Sequans.
Cat M1 adds a sleep mode and drops the requirement of checking the cellular network every second or two, thus lowering power significantly compared to 2G and Cat 1 nets.
Qualcomm said it has more than 100 design wins across more than 60 OEMs for its existing Cat 4 and Cat 1 LTE modems. The Cat 1 power saving mode could enable some IoT end nodes to run up to 10 years on two AA batteries, it said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How To Keep An Unruly Dryer In Line
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/24/how-to-keep-an-unruly-dryer-in-line/
If necessity is the mother of invention, then inconvenience is its frustrating co-conspirator. Faced with a finicky dryer that would shut down mid-cycle with a barely audible beep if its load was uneven (leaving a soggy mass of laundry), [the0ry] decided to add the dryer to the Internet of Things so it could send them an email whenever it shut itself down.
After opening a thinger.io account, adding the soon-to-be device, and setting up the email notification process, [the0ry] combined the ESP8266 Development Board, a photosensitive resistor, and a 5V power supply on a mini breadboard. All that was left was to mount it on the dryer and direct the LDR (light-dependent resistor) to the machine’s door lock LED to trigger an email when it turned off — indicating the cycle had finished or terminated prematurely. A little tape ensured the LDR would only be tripped by the desired light source.
LaundrEsp – Laundry Machine Notification
http://www.instructables.com/id/LaundrEsp-Laundry-Machine-Notification/
Required Materials:
ESP8266 Development Board
Light Dependant Resistor (photoresistor)
Wiring
5V USB Power supply
Tomi Engdahl says:
IoT Arduino Vending Machine
https://www.eeweb.com/project/iot-arduino-vending-machine/
This project is an IoT (Internet of Things) vending machine which Kristian and his friend, Jervelund Hansen, built out of an old vending machine that is no longer working. It works with both RFID and NFC cards and coins.
As mentioned they reused some shift registers, relays and voltage regulators on the original mainboard. One Arduino Pro Mini is connected to the mainboard and takes care of reading and lighting up the buttons (lights up if the relevant slot is not empty), controls the 7-segment LED display, reading the output from the coin validator and returning money if the user requests it by pressing a dedicated button.
On top of that they also made it able to tweet. First, they used a Raspberry Pi connected to the Arduino via Bluetooth, but as the SD card on the Raspberry Pi kept getting corrupt, they ended up using an electric imp instead.
http://blog.tkjelectronics.dk/2015/02/iot-arduino-vending-machine/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The world’s first IoT-modem for 4G network
Swiss u-blox introduces the functioning of the first LTE network IoT module. It supports the new NB-IoT standards (Narrow Band IoT), which is part of the 3GPP Release 13 specification.
The new LTE specification introduced the Internet of Things is transferred to licensed GSM frequencies.
- As a result, access is inherently secure. In addition, the network can scale almost indefinitely,
U-Blox has been working on the SARA N2 module for a long time.
As early as last December in Spain tested the module esistandardiversiota together with Vodafone. Germany, tests have been made with Deutsche Telecom.
- Operator of the NB-IoT is easy to deploy. It requires only a software upgrade LTE base station, Glassman says.
NB-IoT standard supports up to 150 thousand investment in IoT device at the same LTE cell. Data traffic passing 200 kHz disc multi channel mixed with other carrier’s data traffic. Network data passes to the modem in the direction of 227 kilobits per second and 21 kilobits per second.
U-Blox promising new module samples to equipment manufacturers in the fourth quarter. Volume production will begin early next year.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4628:maailman-ensimmainen-iot-modeemi-4g-verkkoon&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zigbee is renewed for IoT connections
igBee Alliance announced the June meeting in Amsterdam on a new mesh-type network standard, which is certainly of interest to many designers IoT systems. The new Jupiter-mesh standard is intended for the so-called. NAN-network basis (Neighborhood Area Network).
Jupiter Mesh advantage of the IPv6 Internet protocol data rates of 6.25 – 800 kilobits per second. Frequency bands are available for less than GHz and 2.4 GHz unlicensed bands own.
Jupiter Mesh is based on open IEEE and IETF standards, enabling reliable interoperability and easy management of, inter alia, of frequency hopping, multi-band operation, authentication, encryption, as well as a number of different vendors based on the techniques of systems.
Network MAC functions, and physical layers of the IEEE’s standards 802.15.4e and 802.15.4g. network in accordance with the IETF-standard and application protocols are available, inter alia, IPv6, 6LoWPAN, UDP, TCP, RPL and COAP. Multicast technology allows the mesh network can be applied to types of M2M (machine-to-machine) communication solutions, like the Internet.
JupiterMesh announcement can also be interpreted as Zigbee Alliance only bet for Bluetooth, which the development team recently announced that it will available in the new mesh-network applications to be able to 5 version.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4625:zigbee-uudistuu-iot-yhteyksiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackaday Prize Entry: SunLeaf
http://hackaday.com/2016/06/25/hackaday-prize-entry-sunleaf/
If there’s one place where the Internet of Things makes sense, it’s agriculture. From vast fields of soybeans, corn, and a different variety of corn, to the backyard garden, knowing how much sun, and rain crops get can vastly increase yields. For their Hackaday Prize project, [Adam] and [Shane] are building a board designed explicitly for plants. It’s called the SunLeaf, and it has all the sensors and radios a good remote sensing board needs.
The SunLeaf is built around an ARM Cortex M4 microcontroller with an ESP8266 module for WiFi connectivity. Sensors are important for any remote sensing board, and for this the guys are going with SeeedStudio Grove connectors, providing four UARTs, four I2C, and four analog ports.For remote sensing applications, you generally can’t rely on mains power, so SunLeaf includes a port for a solar panel and a battery charger
SunLeaf
https://hackaday.io/project/10457-sunleaf
A solar powered wireless picopower sensor module with cloud Datalogging and control geared towards plant and environmental monitoring
Tomi Engdahl says:
The most useful sensors, according to you
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/sensor-ee-perception/4442223/The-most-useful-sensors–according-to-you?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160627&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160627&elqTrackId=bccf5757bc624903b9dec4467a0e695a&elq=1fefb4f51e764e33893d2280f52658aa&elqaid=32832&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28674
We asked, you answered, and we now have the official “most useful sensor,” as selected by the EDN Community, the most experienced, hard-bitten lot of engineers in the world. If anyone would know, you would.
Still, we opted for most useful, as it can be more general and not confined to immediate needs, and your number one vote went to the humble temperature sensor
The others in the top five are MEMS accelerometers, passive or active infrared, vision and imaging, MEMS gyroscopes, and inductive sensors (Figure 2). The “Others” category actually came second in absolute votes, but it was spread among many sensor types, including capacitive, humidity, force, and voltage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5G, Cellular IoT Step Ahead
Qualcomm demos prototype 5G system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329991&
Details related to mission-critical and IoT services are likely to be pushed to the second phase of 5G standards, he said. Qualcomm believes 5G will support a variety of transmission timeframe intervals for different kinds of wireless services.
While the 5G standards won’t start to gel for about two years, the 3GPP finished on June 22 work on its 4G IoT standards, notably Category NB1, formerly known as Cat M2. The spec targets max data rates of 200 Kbits/s over 200 MHz channels, but likely will be used at about 40 Kbit/s average.
Unlike today’s 10Mbit/s Cat 1 and next year’s 1 Mbit/s Cat M1 (also called eMTC), Cat NB1 will not support voice or mobility. The stripped down cellular spec is designed to compete with ultra-low power, low cost options such as Sigfox and LoRa.
Vendors such as Sequans and Qualcomm say they will support the spec with firmware upgrades of existing chips geared for Cat 1 or Cat M. The new spec requires new hardware for carriers, so it is not expected to be enabled by them until early 2018. Once they see what market traction the new standards provide, chip makers may deliver chip sets optimized for the lower costs and power of Cat NB1.
Cat NB1 can be used with either 2G or 4G spectrum. The 3GPP also formerly ratified Extended Coverage GSM (EC-GSM-IoT) as an IoT option for 3G networks.