NOW Is the Time to Start Thinking About the First Killer IoT App
Start with your wildest Sci-Fi fantasies, drill down to practical use cases, then work backward toward available tools & technologies
It would seem IoT is off the blocks and out of the garage at last, but it’s still more or less idling in the driveway while everyone figures out what kind of vehicle it is and where to drive it.
We’ve yet to see the first IoT killer app: the use case that will take IoT to the next level by blowing right past all the nice-to-have and fun-to-have capabilities we’ve already seen — and cross into how-did-I-ever-live-without-this territory.
Stop Thinking Outside The Box. With IoT — There Is No Box
With IoT, the greatest breakthroughs will only come when devs fully internalize the fact that with IoT there is no box, and it’s a mistake to keep using the box as a reference point.
IoT functionality we’ve seen released for consumers to date is based on, and to some extent, modeled after mobile apps. Developers typically start with a mobile app or mobile app / hardware interactivity concept, then essentially port some of its functionality to a voice interface or automated process. Which is not much more of an upgrade, or difference in user experience, than going from a mouse click to a screen swipe.
The trick — and it’s a difficult one — is to start with a mindset that imagines there has never been such a thing as a mobile app, computer program or web browser. That’s how Amazon invented the Echo.
Forget About The Tools — Focus On The Use Case
The Echo came from a brainstorming thought experiment among engineers at Amazon’s Lab 126. They were asked to come up with ideas for new devices, technologies and services that could truly improve peoples’ lives, in the absence of all real-world limitations.
In other words, if anything were possible technologically and financially, no matter how ambitious, what would they invent? A time machine, transporter or replicator? A hover car? A caregiver robot? A mind-reading ice cream maker? The sky was no limit.
The engineers started with a huge pile of ideas, then trimmed the list down to those that had the potential to have a truly practical, positive impact on lives. The next step was to refine each concept into an imagined service or device, fully detailed in terms of general form and use case(s), but still not giving a second thought to available materials or technologies.
It wasn’t until several fully fleshed-out concepts were done that the engineers were asked, “Okay. Now which of these, if any, are currently possible?” Surprisingly — or maybe not so surprisingly — by the time the engineers had culled their list down to only those ideas with the most promise and practical application, they found the distance from concept to finished product was not so very long.
The Toy Box Is Full — What Will You Do With It?
Starting with pre-existing SDKs and toolkits and trying to brainstorm from there imposes limits on the creative process. This approach fosters an instinct to do a twist or incremental improvement on something that’s already out there rather than come up with something totally original that, in hindsight, seems like an obvious and elegant application of available technology.
Something that makes developers and end users alike think, “Well of course this exists now, the only question is why didn’t anyone think of it before?” Kind of like the iPod, when it first launched. I don’t know the development history of the iPod, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it germinated from a use case concept — not from an extrapolation of then-available hardware or SDKs.
IoT developers now have voice interfaces, touch interfaces, smart home devices and appliances, scheduled processes, cameras, motion sensors, light sensors, sound sensors, mechanical devices, streaming media, on- and offline databases, social media integration, fingerprint, voice print and iris print security locks, bar code and QR code scanning, 3D printing, virtual reality, augmented reality and and cloud connectivity at their disposal. What more could we possibly need to create something amazing?
Start with your wildest sci fi fantasies, then drill down to practical use cases, and finally, work backward to reverse engineer toward available tools and technologies.
The first IoT killer app is out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered, and someone will find it.
Why not YOU?
April Hamilton is a tech blogger, app developer, and author who was part of a select group of independent developers invited by Amazon to create Alexa skills when Alexa first launched. Her Crystal Ball and Bingo skills are among the first four skills from independent developers to be released by Amazon for Echo. She holds the rank of Alexa Guru on Amazon’s developer forums.
In addition to being founder and editor in chief of Love My Echo, she’s also founder and editor in chief of Digital Media Mom. April’s tech knowledge and skills were honed during her many years working as a software engineer, web developer, and database administrator in the aerospace field.
