The unsexy IoT • Hacker News Board

Re: The unsexy IoT

#41

Post by tadfisher » Tue, Jan 19, 2016, 7:50 PM UTC

notgood wrote: post #15

IoT has many other problems... as pointed out by the popular twitter account against it: https://twitter.com/internetofshit?lang=en Some of the most amusing posts: - Nest not being able to function while there is service outage (e.g. can't change temperature if server is down) https://twitter.com/Jenthulhu/status/688918036791840768 - Tried to install an Spotify update for the car, ended disabling brakes. https://twit…

> Nest not being able to function while there is service outage (e.g. can't change temperature if server is down) https://twitter.com/Jenthulhu/status/688918036791840768

This was actually a software bug shipped in an automatic update. The bug caused the Nest battery to drain faster than the HVAC power line could charge it. In my experience, Nest works fine when not connected to the Internet.

Re: The unsexy IoT

#42

Post by mej10 » Tue, Jan 19, 2016, 10:38 PM UTC

lgieron wrote: post #29

amelius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is federated, P2P-like systems. But, unfortunately, there is no money to be made with such solutions.

No one's making money of BitTorrent, and yet it functions. I think that P2P Dropbox or even youtube (without ads) is a pretty good idea.

The BitTorrent company makes money off of their torrent clients.

Re: The unsexy IoT

#43

Post by massysett » Wed, Jan 20, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #20

massysett wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what qualifies as "large" but procuring food for my family is a tedious and time-consuming task so for me at least it is large and repetitive. I'm not sure how much that can be automated though. The parent post mentioned tracking of airplanes. I wouldn't mind if a company monitored my home heating system or refrigerator and notified me if they were about to fail, as these failures can be expensive and a…

I wouldn't mind if a company monitored my home heating system or refrigerator and notified me if they were about to fail, as these failures can be expensive I'd be worried that the pre-emptive maintenance would be far more expensive. You can already get heating system insurance, but I wouldn't trust the IoT system to not over-order maintenance in order to maintain the company's profits. I saw an advert for HP's print…

"It's already the most expensive liquid most people will buy, and you want to let the printer order it for you?"

Beats running out of ink at 10pm when I need a printout by tomorrow morning.

Re: The unsexy IoT

#44

Post by dorkulous » Thu, Jan 21, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

vdnkh wrote: post #14

I work for a company doing unsexy IoT and I've been dreaming about writing this article for months now. We're a tiny company in New Jersey whose been around in some form or another for the last 25 years, supplying remote telemetry units (RTUs) to the industrial assets industry. Helium, oxygen, nitrogen, whatever, on boats, trucks, and static sites. We also provide a monitoring platform which is where I come in. We're…

I think you hit the nail on the head here. You are delivering within a vertical, which means you have a good chance at being successful.

IoT, like BigData before it, is suffering from an overload of people building technology for the sake of technology. I have done a lot of hands-on work in the Remote Service side of IoT, implementing solutions for GE, the TSA, etc.

At no point did I ever encounter a customer who longingly cried out "Woe is me, is there a horizontal technology anywhere that kinda solves a piece of my problem?!".

I fear that as we follow down the hype curve in IoT over the next 24 months, the roadsides will be littered with interesting and functional platforms that failed to solve a business problem.

Companies like the one described above will continue to make money and solve problems without any of the press that comes along with each new IoT platform.