From IoT hype in 2015 to reality in 2016

Gareth Noyes, Jan. 12, 2016 – 

The Internet of Things (IoT) has had a major impact on the electronics market this year, and it looks like 2015 marks a tipping point. In much the same way that there was a lot of debate over the definition of cloud computing in the early days, so, a similar phenomenon has happened with IoT. The discussion around what IoT is, how it is defined, and how it differs from M2M, has died down, and the focus and discussion is now on delivering solutions and demonstrating value.

One example is that we have stopped talking about is numbers. Back in 2014, everyone would start their presentations with numbers: 5 billion, 10 billion, 20 billion connected devices and how many trillions of dollars were developing in market opportunity. As 2015 progressed, people stopped talking up the numbers as everyone acknowledged that IoT is going to be BIG.

Similarly, by breaking down IoT into the different levels of technology, architecture and topology, industry commentators are now talking about a fairly consistent architecture with cloud connected gateways connected to things and devices. This demonstrates that the industry is starting to converge on its understanding of IoT, and the education phase is moving to a focus on implementation.

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