IoT: Is it the Future?

Machines notifying their owners or service providers that they are empty/full/broken is really one of the most basic IoT ideas. The thing that will really make it take off is going to be something that we haven't thought of or currently thing is impossible.

The biggest issue that still needs to be overcome is the security. Sure, you can get it to be as secure as anything else today using traditional (D)TLS and certs, but some of these devices are have a (shelf) life of over 10 years. What happens to all the devices on the shelf (or just not turned on) if your CA was diginotar? Either you keep your now insecure cert so that devices can still connect to download the new cert or you just remove it and force everyone to do a firmware update manually. Do you really expect your grandma to update the firmware on their smoke detector? If you just leave it, how long do you support it?

All that assumes that you're okay with the wide variety of privacy issues that come with having all this data streamed from your house (or business or whatever) up into someone else's servers. I think another thing that is going to be important is a "local iot", none of your data is able to leave a small box inside your house except for small bits of things that actually need to, like notifications or alert states. But, again, how do you solve the security in this, especially if you want compatibility between different manufactures?

- Increasingly computerized and automated devices are the future, but they won't necessarily be part of the Web or even the Internet.

- IoT is typically thought of as a consumer trend, but it will largely consist of business process automation - not connecting toasters to iphones.

Internet security and trust are so fundamentally broken that the vending machine will notify the company automatically, but it will do so using a propriety network or SaaS, not by communicating using standard open APIs on the web.

The majority of devices aren't consumer devices. There are very few consumer things to be part of an Internet, yet every industry typically employs many machines and devices working together as part of a larger process. The only devices I even use in apartment are my fridge and stove. Everybody is looking at all the consumer possibilities with IoT but its really a B2B phenomenon.

Id bet there will be 2 buckets that things fall into ...

1) Added connectivity that makes the core functionality better (ex. thermostat that can forecast the temperature for the next 2 hours to improve AC costs)

2) Connectivity that is tacked on as a gimmick that doesn't actually improve what the thing is made for in the first place (ex. microwave that texts you when its done)

In the long term I think only category 1 will remain in the IoT world. From my consumer perspective most things around my house fall into bucket #2 - All I want is for that thing to do what its meant to do best which usually doesn't involve being able to talk to anything.