IoT Evolution, the leading media brand for the Internet of Things (IoT), has published a book outlining more than 150 of the leading trends in the IoT industry, entitled “IoT Time: Evolving Trends in the Internet of Things.” The book, written by IoT Evolution Editorial Director, Ken Briodagh, seeks to explore the factors that have shaped the recent past of the developing industry and use those to predict the trends that will drive the next period of growth. Each of the trends is explicated and illustrated with a case study or product review that supports each position.
In this weekly series, we’ll be previewing chapters for you to read in the hopes that you’ll like enough to read the whole thing. To do just that, for free, click here. Alternatively, there’s a paperback version available on Amazon for $14.99.
Chapter 3: Gadgets
Trend: Automated Environmental Controls
Mistbox: Heat Wave Relief for You and Your Wallet
Summertime for most folks in the U.S. means fun in the sun and lots of warm weather. You either enjoy it outdoors or you enjoy the sunny view, through the window, while you sit inside with the nice cold AC running. Electricity rates have been soaring, and if MistBox’s consumers can cut down some of the power used to run their air conditioning systems, then it is doing its job.
This is the same goal of many other smart products for the home that can do everything from have a hot cup of coffee brewed and ready for when you wake up to reducing the temperature in the house when you’re not home.
In fact, according to research from Berg Insight, North America is the world’s most advanced smart home market and had an installed base of 12.7 million smart homes at the end of the year - a 56 percent year-on-year growth. And there’s no sign of slowing as the number of smart homes in North America are expected to hit 46.2 million by 2020 – which translates to 35 percent of all households. Of those items topping the list in smart homes are: smart thermostats, security systems, smart light bulbs, network cameras and multi-room audio systems.
The Mistbox gadget gets attached to an AC unit outside and has a solar-powered temperature gauge that kicks on when the temperature threshold setting is met- the factory setting is 80 but this can be changed based on user needs. It then emits a mist to cool down the air around the air conditioner – so it works less and wastes less energy.
This isn’t just technology at work to make lives easier and save money – there are environmental benefits too. By reducing the footprint of the AC unit, the Mistbox is also helping to reduce non-renewable energy consumption and promote a greener world. What makes the Mistbox able to accurately emit the mist are the sensors and automatic algorithms that can detect the best time to spray based on things like temperature, sound and electromagnetic field. As a companion to the gadget, the company also offers a compatible app that lets you do thing like see the battery level of the box, if a filter change is needed, and more.
Trend: RFID tagging is still big business
Greater IoT Proliferation is Possible Through RFID-Tagged Smart Paper
The demand for practical solutions is only increasing in both the public and private sectors. A new generation of smart paper that does more than its name suggests just may be the next big thing in the IoT revolution.
Paper is one of the most ubiquitous materials on the planet. As a medium, it can assist the IoT world by being implanted with Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which can turn normal paper into a responsive medium of communication. The thin, low-cost tags can also be printed onto currency, legal documents, and concert tickets, helping to combat counterfeiting.
This paper uses the RFID sensors to detect gestures such as touching, tapping, swiping, or sliding and communicates them to a remote computer. Disney Research at Carnegie Mellon University and Google researchers from the University of Washington are working on this technology in separate projects, which aims to take the RFID component and integrate it into paper known as PaperID.
This paper is ideal for preventing counterfeiting money, documents and bills. The Bank of Japan and the European bank have been working on using this technology on their currencies.
Trend: Protecting Citizens
MobileDefender: Protecting Our in the Field Workers
SecuraTrac, a provider of mobile health and safety solutions focused on senior safety, employee well being and the healthcare industry, unveiled its next generation mPERS mobile emergency pendant, the MobileDefender Model S (MD-S). The device uses location technologies and accelerometers to detect when someone has fallen and then it calls for help. In the event the user is unable to move or reach a phone, the Model S triggers automatically, calling emergency responders.
To improve battery lifespan, the MD-S was designed with a Wake-on SOS feature, which gives the device the ability to last over 30 days on a single charge because the device is off until the SOS button is activated. This preserves the battery while enabling the device to turn-on, locate, transmit its location, and make the emergency phone call after the SOS is activated. Using existing SecuraTrac cloud-based location technology, the new MD-S adds the ability for Central Stations to respond to potential accidents.
Trend: IoT for water
Trimble Launches LoRa Water Sensors
Trimble recently introduced the new Telog 41 Series of wireless, battery-powered sensors for IoT water monitoring applications, using LoRa to remotely measure and monitor water, wastewater and groundwater systems for pressure, flow, level and rainfall volume.
The sensors work in combination with Telog cloud-hosted and on–premise software. The sensors extend across a utility’s existing monitoring programs for better tracking, measurement and reporting of water usage, sanitary and combined-sewer overflows and flooding, leakage and non-revenue water.
“The IoT for water enables a step change in operational efficiency, compliance and sustainability for the water industry,” said Adrian Newcombe, business director, Telog, Trimble. “With the ability to wirelessly report data at resolutions down to five minute intervals, water managers have much deeper visibility into their operations. This is essential for enabling utilities to transform how they operate their distribution and collection networks.”
The new series of products includes five wireless IoT sensors that communicate to Telog software at intervals between 5 minutes and 24 hours using LoRaWAN technology. The sensors are: Pressure Monitoring, Level Monitoring, Flow Monitoring, Pulse/Event Monitoring, and Rainfall Monitoring.
Key common features include: Low cost relative to traditional cellular remote monitoring products, LoRaWAN IoT wireless technology, configurable alerts and alarms for automated event detection and reporting, powered by a single, user-replaceable C-size lithium battery, Small size, rugged and easy to install.
Trend: Retail gadgetry
A Practical Way to Look at IoT Opportunities in Retail
In retail environments, from CPG shops to fast food chains, good gadgetry can make a real difference in consumer experience and profitability. Sensors and control modules deliver real-time information when needed and help employees deliver service wherever required.
“Of course, the aggregated data showing how sensed equipment is performing, whether HVAC, refrigerators, fryers, grills, security cameras, locks and more is important,” Asava said, “where the near real time analytics can be most immediately helpful is at the local level.”
Real time data created by sensors, often from different vendors, store managers and store operations teams can run their businesses more profitably. A federation of data streams can give the managers of big box stores a unified dashboard of all the sensor-powered applications they are using.
All of this, tied together, makes the retail world run more efficiently, and that leads to better consumer outcomes, across the board.
Trend: And baby makes three
BabyBit: Monitoring Your Baby's Safety
For any parent, monitoring and caring for the baby’s safety is of the utmost of importance, especially if you’re not around to take care of them yourself. BabyBit, developed by Brian Ostrovsky, co-founder and CEO of the company’s primary device, claims to be the first “smart and mobile baby monitor” that provides parents with real-time mobile updates on their baby's status, location, and well being. The company has partnered with automaker Jaguar Land Rover to create a device that will put parents’ worries to rest. The device sends parents instant and actionable notifications about the location of the baby, who they are with and what the baby is doing.
“We see the device being sold online as well as traditional brick and mortar retail. BabyBit will evolve and continue to add capabilities through software such as geofencing, Siri integration, etc. We also see opportunities for products based on the same technologies in eldercare and potentially diagnostics,” said Ostrovsky, who was Intel’s former director of Big Ideas.
Old-fashioned baby monitors only offer a video view or audio of the infant, but this device offers information about the comfort level of the child, the air temperature of the room where the child is, their location, and whether the baby is asleep or not.
BabyBit provides parents with alerts about the child’s safety with the caregiver, whether a new employee or a long time caregiver through notifications about critical events like the baby being picked up or dropped off by a new caregiver, or the caregiver being unable to console the baby. Notifications are configurable to the needs of each parent and they receive notifications based on the parameters that they set. The interface is via an app, that, when launched, can provide parents with more detailed intelligence such as whether or not the baby is crying and how far away the baby is from the caregiver. The device’s sensor, which is attached to the baby’s clothing, can add as many caregivers as necessary.
Trend: Big companies make big plays
Nokia Completes Acquisition of Withings
Nokia in 2016 purchased Withings, a personal smart devices manufacturer best known for its digital, internet-connected scales that have been endorsed by magician Penn Jillette. The acquisition lead the way for Nokia to establish a new Digital Health business unit, which is being lead by Cédric Hutchings, formerly CEO of Withings. Hutchings reports to Ramzi Haidamus, president, Nokia Technologies.
“This is the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the history of Nokia Technologies as we extend our product portfolio to include a series of powerful digital health technologies,” said Haidamus. “The Nokia brand is synonymous with innovation, connectivity and consumer technology and the acquisition of Withings puts us in a perfect position to capitalize on the huge opportunity in the health space. We're excited to welcome the Withings team to the Nokia family.”
The Digital Health business unit combines employees from Withings and Nokia’s preventive health and patient care teams. It leverages Withings’ device portfolio and IoT edge expertise to offer digital health products designed to help customers make smarter decisions about health. The existing product line includes activity trackers, smart body analyzer scales, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, home and baby monitors.
This makes Nokia into even more of a major player in the IoT, getting the company beyond connectivity and smart mobile devices and into the most personal areas of people’s lives. That kind of access will likely keep the company in the “bears watching” category for competitors for quite some time.
Trend: Personal irrigation systems
Uponer and Belkin Join Forces to Build Phyn
An intelligent water management system, called Phyn, was built by Belkin International and Uponor Corporation to protect homes from leak damage, enable mindful conservation, and enhance household water usage with automated and anticipatory controls.
“Plumbing has essentially provided the same function for centuries,” said Bill Gray, president, Uponor North America. “And while it will continue to provide that essential function, we believe that real change is finally coming. We must find a better way to use our water more intelligently and with purpose.”
The technology offered by Phyn allows builders to provide higher value as part of their smart-home offerings; insurers to reduce their number one claim frequency and the number two paid-claims dollar amount — estimated at more than $1 billion annually in the U.S. alone. Utility companies can avoid costly investment into infrastructure by eliminating water loss and waste. Engineers can gain water-use statistics across a broad customer base as units become installed in hundreds of thousands of locations. And plumbing professionals can increase services offered and monitor and mitigate leak concerns of their customers.
“Water is a precious and vital natural resource, but there has been a fundamental lack of technology dedicated to protecting and preserving it — especially for home users,” said Chet Pipkin, founder and CEO, Belkin. “With the creation of Phyn, we're bringing water up to speed with the rest of the smart home, helping to not only protect consumers' homes and wallets, but also do our part to solve the very real challenges facing our global water supply.”
Phyn will be a standalone company using Belkin's proprietary water-sensing technologies, data science and IoT expertise, in addition to its product design, consumer insights and global retail channel. Uponor will bring its plumbing expertise, knowledge of the trades and global wholesale distribution channel.
Trend: Video for fun and profit
Surveillance Drives New Revenue Opportunities
Video analytics tech is helping companies drive revenue and reduce costs, but in the consumer space, video surveillance is proving to be equally profitable. Every year, video makes up a bigger percentage of total Internet traffic, and some of that growth is due to video-enabled IoT solutions, falling costs associated with video analytics systems, and a strong demand for security-related video surveillance.
In the past, installing a video security system for the home was both complex and expensive. This task is now much simpler with low-maintenance and affordable IP-enabled cameras that can transmit video in real-time or enable the playback of recorded videos. Intelligent video door phones can alert homeowners when someone comes to the front door or attempts to enter the house. This type of device could also offer advanced biometric security using facial recognition technology.
Cameras are helping with home health and senior care, too. People are using intelligent, video-enabled baby cameras and sensors, embedded in lamps, children’s toys, tools and appliances, to keep an eye on loved ones. These solutions can transmit real-time information directly to mobile devices, allowing end users to check in and ensure that proper care is being administered.
Of course, IP video is not just for home security purposes. Consumers broadcast experiences to a global audience during sports and outdoor activities. Real-time video feeds are ideal for sharing sports events, family outings, business presentations and much more.
Drones and dash cams also are popular for capturing live experiences. A dash cam can also prevent accidents through facial recognition software that monitors a driver’s eye movements, detects drowsiness and alerts the driver before he or she swerves off of the road.
Trend: Campus life
Illinois Institute of Technology: Improving Safety on their Campuses
The Illinois Institute of Technology Real-Time Communications (RTC) Lab is a collaborative venue that brings industry and academia together to connect and collaborate for teaching, research and development activities that further the advancement of networked communications.
“The students gave very fine presentations which were very well received by an extremely interactive audience. Their projects were all focused on challenges to real-time communications today, and audience members, from industry and the technical community, made suggestions and shared their own experiences with the students throughout the presentations and discussion period,” said Carol Davids, Industry Professor and Director, Real-Time Communications Lab, Illinois Institute of Technology, School of Applied Technology. The most recent projects were about emergency services.
“This was an excellent opportunity for the students to discuss the real-world application of the concepts that they worked on during the semester. Audience members also offered support and ideas for the future evolution of these and other RTC Lab projects at Illinois Institute of Technology,” said Davids.
The first presentation focused on improving the support for emergency call responders with a service that supplies indoor location to emergency calls. The motivation behind this project was a recent FCC rulemaking that requires cellular service providers to identify the indoor location of mobile 9-1-1 calls originating indoors. The service covers the entire main campus of the institute and the location discovery algorithm has been refined. Another presentation was on the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Public Service Answering Point (PSAP), which is the first point of contact for a caller in distress. Currently, people text 911 from their smart phones, they attempt video calls and other common means of communications. Most PSAPs can’t handle these modes of communication yet. A new design for the PSAP, using the WebRTC protocols and architectures were described and its early implementation was demonstrated. The solution helps the code for the PSAP since it is embedded in a web page and no special systems or applications need to be installed at the call center where the operators take calls.
Trend: Routers and Gateways
Clean Router: Keeping Children Safe on the Internet
Clean Router is a company built to create smarter parental controls at the gateway. It was founded by two entrepreneurs, Spencer Thomason and Eric Vance, who won a grant from the Spring 2016 Arizona Innovation Challenge, a biannual business competition run by the Arizona Commerce Authority that provides grants to startups and early stage companies. The ACA provides $3 million in grants annually to the most qualified, innovative startups and early-stage companies: $1.5 million in the spring and $1.5 million in the fall.
“It is exciting to see Arizona’s entrepreneurial ecosystem continue to grow and produce impressive startup companies, and the ACA is proud to support them,” said Sandra Watson, CEO, Arizona Commerce Authority. “Our rigorous selection process ensures that the best and brightest startups thrive in Arizona – and their success continues to showcase Arizona as a leader in innovation. Congratulations to all of the Spring 2016 awardees, your success is well-deserved.”
The clean router can be plugged into an existing modem or router and then becomes the new router through which the Internet is accessed. The user can program the router to block pornography or inappropriate content on virtually any device, browser and operating system connected to it. It is compatible with desktops, laptops, tablets, iPods, iPhones, Androids, Windows Phones, and Blackberry devices. It is also useful with video gaming consoles, Smart TVs, Streaming Media Players, and Apple TV.
The Clean Router uses an IntelliFilter Technology, which is the company’s exclusive multilevel search technology to continuously block unwanted content. It is capable of providing a safe experience for those who use it by offering an existing list of keywords and phrases, which can block content by default. This feature comes with URL/Domain words, which can block websites with specific word, image name/URL words to block images with specific names, and user defined black/white lists.
Trend: Opening of the home control field
Invoxia Releases First Non-Amazon, Alexa-Enabled Smart Home Product
Amazon’s Alexa is the big player in the smart home controls marketplace, and developers are releasing new third-party products enabled with its API.
Invoxia, a developer of speakers and telecom devices, released the Amazon Alexa Voice Service (AVS) on Triby, a family-friendly kitchen device designed to combine music, messaging and communication functionality in one voice-activated product. Triby is a digital assistant, Internet radio, connected speaker, hands-free speakerphone, and connected message board, and with the Alexa addition, users have hands-free voice control.
“As one of our first Alexa Fund companies, it’s great to see Triby offer their customers Alexa integration today,” said Steve Rabuchin, VP, Amazon Alexa. “We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with technology in your home, which is one reason we’ve made access to the Alexa Voice Service available to device makers and developers for free.”
Using four digital microphones, and noise and echo cancellation technologies, Triby creates a beam to capture voices while eliminating background noise from up to 15 feet away. With the Alexa-enabled Triby, users can play music, hear information, get the news, order a ride from Uber, set timers and alarms, and control their smart home devices with just their voices. Along with access to Alexa services, users can make voice commands to control various aspects of Triby’s multi-functionality in the future, including making calls.
“As a company with a specialty in creating speakers and telecoms devices, we are excited by the world of possibilities consumer products like Triby offer families to improve their lives,” said Sébastien de la Bastie, Managing Director, Invoxia. “Our expertise in far field voice capture and connected devices helped us integrate the Alexa Voice Service quickly… giving people access to continually evolving cloud-based content and services.”
Triby was designed with large keys, a splash-proof and dirt-proof case, and a strong magnetic back to attach to fridges and other steel objects. Multi-colored rubber protective bumpers are also available to make Triby more kitchen-friendly.
Trend: Smart toys
Smart Toys Will Ease Us into the Great Smart World
Andy Marken, President, Marken Communications, wrote about the best ways to move society toward better and stronger AI, saying that it’s best to get folks familiar with the tech while they’re young.
“Grab the kids in their formative years, make ‘em go home and scream/holler/throw fits,” he wrote.
Smart toys are more entertaining, more fun, and making kids more accustomed to using smarter gadgets. Of course, it also means that there might be some privacy concerns about what these toys know about the kiddoes in question. They can give the toys names, age, address, password, photos, mom’s and dad’s info.
Mattel’s talking Hello Barbie could do more than any other toy. She could carry on seemingly natural conversations, and learn to exchange information and ideas.
End-to-end services like these children’s toys are complex and require significant investment, which is why most developers use major cloud service providers. As more educational toys and tools go online, they will affect kids in ways we can’t even imagine now.
Trend: Light the way
Gateway Lights Up the IoT
Lighting is a key element in the emerging Smart Home, and I’ve been seeing in-home lights start housing many IoT functions like Wi-Fi nodes, Bluetooth beacons and security features.
For one, Gooee, a smart lighting ecosystem provider that connects OEMs to the IoT, developed a multi-protocol enterprise IoT gateway that connects lighting and sensing devices to its cloud platform. It was developed to include a cloud-integrated OS, so the gateway supports multiple communication protocols like Bluetooth, Zigbee and WiFi and Ethernet and Serial ports. This gateway is engineered for reliability, connectivity and interoperability in order to bring lighting ecosystems closer to full potential.
“In the early stages of our eco-system’s development we planned to work with existing gateway devices, but were unable to find anything that offered the adequate support for our platform to run efficiently and reliably,” said Simon Coombes, CTO, Gooee.
The Gooee gateway also has an ARM-based processor, operates offline through a local and secure RESTful API and MQTT over WebSockets, and allows third-party service integrations thanks to a localized secure app-container. The gateway runs Gooee’s Bluetooth Mesh, which is engineered for its lighting and sensing end-points and is capable of handling the bandwidth needed for the volume of sensing data created.
To complement the gateway, Gooee also released a device to extend the range and end-point count that the gateway can support. The Puck is a power-over-Ethernet to Bluetooth extender device that runs Mesh protocol and works with the gateway to extend the device’s range and increase the number of end-point ‘hubs’ that are managed by the technology.
“Ensuring we can handle the wide range of environments is critical, so having offline capabilities with a local, security conscious API, and a distributed multi-gateway environment means we offer our customers better performance levels found within costly on-premise hardware,” Simon added. “Many hub and gateway manufacturers claim their devices support thousands of end-points, in some cases tens of thousands. That might be possible if you need a limited amount of control and are just turning groups of lights on and off. At Gooee, we are dealing with individual end-point control and a vast sensory network generating large quantities of environmental and energy data – put simply, our gateway is designed for this kind of enterprise scale.”
In this weekly series, we’ll be previewing chapters for you to read in the hopes that you’ll like enough to read the whole thing. To do just that, for free, click here. Alternatively, there’s a paperback version available on Amazon for $14.99.
Edited by
Ken Briodagh
