5-Nines and Why I am not ready for the IOT

I’m an early adopter. I have drawers full of fitness trackers, digital cameras, kickstarter projects, and other electronic detritus. Remember the Psion Organizer that ran the original Symbian Mobile OS? Yup I had one of those too. It was the early 1990’s version of my Phantom 3 drone. For the most part this “early adopter” disease of mine has been relatively harmless beyond the pocketbook, but things are changing.

The Internet of Things (IOT) is taking the world by storm. So it stands to reason that I have Nest thermostats, Nest Protect smoke detectors, and August smart locks in my home. I am coming to find out that the IOT industry isn’t anywhere close to delivering the kind of service needed for this industry to thrive.

In the 1990s when I financed the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS) industry there was a lot of talk about reliability. POTS ran their networks on a standard called 5-Nines, representing 99.999% reliability, or only 5–1/4 minutes of downtime per year.

If you couldn’t deliver 5-nines of availability you weren’t in business.

Back to the IOT. I already gave up on my 3 Nest protects due to multiple false alarms. Do I really need my smoke detector with connectivity? In the old world when the smoke detector alarmed, I was usually cooking something and simply pulled it from the ceiling, pressed the reset button and set it on the floor for a few minutes while the smoke cleared. Thank god it was never a real fire but if it had been we would have left the house. If I wasn’t home, it never mattered. At home the Nest isn’t much different except I have never been cooking during a false alarm and it takes more time and special tools to defeat the battery. When I am away from home is it really helpful to have my smartphone alert me that my Nest Protect thinks there is a fire? Should I call the fire department? Should I ditch the client meeting and drive or fly home? If it is false I don’t want to hear about it and if my house is burning down with nobody home then it is too late and there is nothing I can do about it. The connectivity doesn’t do anything actionable for me.

I haven’t had any troubles with my August Smart Lock (knock wood) but I know others have had issues coming home to doors unlocked.

This week my Nest thermostat stopped working in a sub-freezing temperature cycle 3 hours before I had to leave town on business for 5 days. I was alerted by my wife that the heat wasn’t coming on and got up at 5AM to spend an hour figuring out why the battery wasn’t charging and how to disconnect the Nest from my wall, plug it into a USB charger, and get it charged again. This is the first issue I have had with this thermostat in 2+ years. But the duration of the issue puts it into 3-nines territory for me.

I can deal with life when my DJI Phantom 3 falls from the sky. I understand it is the price of early adoption. But when it comes to IOT devices, particularly those that protect my home from fire, keep my family warm, and keep my home secure, the industry isn’t anywhere near ready for the prime time coverage it is receiving. These companies are so focused on getting to market early and quickly iterating their product that they ignore reliability. I believe that without a focus on 5-nines reliability the IOT era that we see today is no better than my old Psion Organiser and that we are going to have to wait a decade for anything useful and reliable to arrive.