Technology & Innovation

Will this year be an Internet of Things Christmas?

October 29, 2013

Global

October 29, 2013

Global
James Chambers

Former senior editor

James is Bureau Chief for Monocle, Hong Kong. Prior to this he worked as a Senior Editor with The EIU's Thought Leadership team for over three years researching business, technology and cities. He has also written about business and technology for The World In 2015 and economist.com. James has previous experience from IR magazine, a finance publication, where he was research editor in London and Shanghai. Additionally he contributed to Legal Week, a weekly legal magazine, and worked on the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards in the US and Europe. James is an English law-qualified solicitor (currently non-practising) and holds post-graduate legal qualifications from BPP Law School and an LLP in Law from the London School of Economics.

New EIU report highlights a global pipeline of IoT products

This Christmas may not see a mass roll-out of Google Glass but how many other Internet of Things products will be sitting under the tree, come December 25th?

A new EIU report on the IoT suggests the next few years are likely to see the current trickle of IoT products turn into a flood (75% of companies are actively exploring the IoT, with most at an advanced stage of research). Admittedly, it may be too soon to declare Yuletide 2013 for the IoT—taking on the likes of the Raspberry Pi for top spot on everyone’s wish lists—but there are a few options already out there for all of the family.

Nike’s Fuelband, the FitBit Flex, or Jawbone’s UP wristband, all seem like ideal gifts for the girlfriend or boyfriend, particularly in advance of January’s inevitable resolutions; although any type of exercise-related gift should come with a boiler-plate warning about the message it conveys to the recipient: does it say tech-savvy keep-fit enthusiast or last ditch attempt to conscript technology into weight management?

For mothers, there is Belkin’s WeMo device—a kind of IoT-enabled plug adapter for the home, which allows the lights to be turned on and off remotely via smartphone. My own mother received an iPhone last Christmas and she is still primarily using it to play Words with Friends.  As for dads, some may well be holding out for the IoT-enabled, driverless car...alas, they will have to wait a while yet (and read the case study in our report to see how this is getting on).

Why I’m not dreaming of white goods, fitted with sensors

During the research for our IoT report, I had an interesting discussion with fellow Brit, Kevin Ashton—the Jonny Ive of the IoT (or at least the man who coined the term ‘Internet of Things’ while at Procter & Gamble in 1999—which he now describes as a “very ungrammatical title for a PowerPoint presentation” (“I was bored. I really wanted to wake myself up. I knew that if I put the ‘Internet’ in there somewhere it would be more interesting to old men.”).

Ashton, now working for Belkin, was stuck in early LA traffic when we spoke, giving me a good hour to pick his brains about the past, present and future of the IoT. Our conversation also happened to coincide with the one year anniversary of WeMo—the company’s first IoT product to hit the market.

WeMo has been successful so far, says Ashton, in terms of the number of people already using it on a regular basis, but the company is deliberately trickling out products to learn about the market and understand what customers want. Our report finds that many businesses are adopting a similarly cautious approach to IoT investment.

Few consumers are going to demand the Internet of Things, Ashton points out. Consumers are going to demand a security system that they can control from their smartphone or an aircon system that actually knows the temperature in every room not just by the front door. “You don’t go to the end-user and talk about the Internet of Things,” he says. “You talk about benefits."

(Just imagine a kid Whatsapping Santa this year, asking for the Internet of Things…It’s just not the same as the desperate letters we sent him in ’92, begging for Tracey Island from Thunderbirds—so desperate we ended up making it out of paper mache.)

This low-level name recognition among consumers is in direct contrast to the traditional Internet, which businesses and consumers both adopted relatively quickly. So in reality there may never be an "Internet of Things Christmas".  But consumers do not need to be using the lingo in order to want IoT products or services (such as the insurance app that allows drivers to pay premiums based on their driving habits—the next best thing for disappointed dads). 

Looks like we will all have to wait and see what Santa brings…less than two months to go now!

 

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited (EIU) or any other member of The Economist Group. The Economist Group (including the EIU) cannot accept any responsibility or liability for reliance by any person on this article or any of the information, opinions or conclusions set out in the article.

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