When we set out to create a reference guide describing the technology needed for a complete Internet of Things system, we thought we would kill two birds with one stone:
- Provide a useful reference guide for anyone tasked with an IoT project.
- Gain insight into why there might be doubt about the Internet of Things, frequently referred to as the 4th industrial revolution.
A Reference Guide to the Internet of Things.
Is the Internet of Things the 4th Industrial Revolution?
In a Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017 review, an author resorted to sarcasm when it came to IoT, “… after all, who needs their washing machine connected to the internet?”
Revolutionary technological advances do not happen without overcoming challenges. The printing press for example immediately outpaced writers. Therefore the scarcity of writers needed to be corrected. However, until the problem of illiteracy was solved nearly two generations later, the societal impact of the printing press could not be felt.
The IoT has two significant challenges:
- There are not enough IoT ideas that justify the cost (i.e., can you justify a connected wash machine?).
- Developing an IoT system is not easy and requires a significant investment.
Ideas
You do not have to go beyond the first page of Google to read about IoT ideas. Home automation, smart cities, and industrial applications are the early adopters. Lately the most press attention is arguably the most ambitious, autonomous vehicles. Industrial IoT is the sleeping giant, although many operations people will tell you that they have been doing IoT for 30 years.
Cost
Since there is no shortage of ideas, you might argue that the key barrier for IoT reaching its predicted potential is the investment cost. A report from Cisco shows that 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the Proof of Concept (PoC) stage and only 26 percent of companies have had an IoT initiative that they considered a complete success. The report goes on to state that the top five challenges across all stages of implementation:
- Time to completion
- Limited internal expertise
- Quality of data
- Integration across teams
- Budget overruns
There is no avoiding the cross-discipline team needed to create and maintain an end-to-end IoT solution. However, there are alternatives to maintaining this complex team within a single company. These alternatives become more viable when you know your requirements. For IoT to realize its full potential, we must educate CIO’s and CTO’s on critical make or buy decisions involved in IoT to reduce this barrier to entry.
Start with an Education
If we can reduce the IoT investment cost, we can bring more of these ideas to life. Step One is to understand the major components in the IoT technology stack and the technology trade-offs available for each component.
Get a head start on step one by downloading our eBook, A Reference Guide to the Internet of Things. IoT solutions require a cross-disciplined team to develop, we assembled a cross-disciplined team to write this book and hope you find it useful.
Fill out our contact form if you have questions about Bridgera IoT.
About the Author: Ron Pascuzzi leads sales and marketing at Bridgera, LLC in Raleigh, NC. Ron is an evangelist for the Internet of Things and believes that IoT initiatives should not be compromised due to a lack of software development skills. Contact him to learn more about Bridgera IOT, not just another IoT Platform but Custom Software-as-a-Service for the Internet of Things.
