Pete Warden just wrote an interesting article Why has the Internet of Things Failed? He points to devices with minimal user interfaces and the proliferation of phone apps, high networking costs for battery powered devices, and questionable value propositions. I disagree that IoT has failed, but it has certainly under-performed.

In my opinion, questionable value propositions is the biggest problem of the three. My grand vision for IoT was that it would provide the foundation for INTEGRATING many different sensors into some coherent whole. Too many designers are focused on their (single) IoT-enabled device valuable. What we need are mechanisms to integrate multiple devices to provide value that none of them can provide individually.

We should be thinking about “Communities of IoT” (= CIoT = “coyote” ???). Of course, this is just a version of Multiagent Systems; a topic near and dear to my heart.

Using Pete’s example, people don’t want just a “smart dishwasher”. They want a “smart kitchen” or “smart home”. They don’t want a “smart printer”, they want a “smart office”. In the extreme, they want a “smart life”.

This requires both sensor fusion and AI / AIoT. Electronics is not going to provide the necessary integration. It is too low-level and not nearly adaptable enough. AI is perfect technology to do both the sensor fusion, and then make the decisions to bring the IoT community to life. And it can adapt and personalize the CIoT for each user.

It also substantially increases system complexity for both developers and users, and must also be addressed.

Another challenge is lack of user data privacy. Device X might provide me some benefit, but the cost is granting some unknown, big-tech company access to a slice of me and my life. If the benefit is less than that cost, people won’t adopt it.

Agree? / Disagree? / Leave a comment.