Practical considerations while planning for the IoT products and services
IoT is one of the fastest growing technologies of today’s times. While every big company today wants to add the power of IoT to their system, not many understand it well.
Here are few practical considerations while planning for an IoT product and service:
1. Solve a problem: During our recent round of fundraising, I got a very useful advice from an investor. “Focus on the problem first.” A lot of times we are blinded by the IoT technology so we focus on adding the technology to our system. Instead, we should focus more on the problem. IoT should be used only when there is a clear need for remote data collection, real-time data processing remote control of the system etc.
2. Focus on usability: It is important that we focus on the ease of use. Bolt is used by iSafe for their Smart Alert systems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bin2GHXGADc) . Many times they got complaints that their system is not working, only to realise that they had changed the WiFi password and forgotten to make the changes on the device. They solved it by adding a small LED which blinked when WiFI was not connected.
3. Internet connectivity: Of course IoT does not work without Internet connectivity. It is important to choose the right medium of Internet i.e. WiFi or GSM. While WiFi is better options in homes, offices, and factories, GSM might be better in outdoor locations.
4. Security: You don’t want your data to fall into the wrong hands. It is important to follow good practices like using secure internet protocols like TLS, Sanitising your Inputs, ensuring the firmware is updated to the latest version etc. Hardware security is also important so that an unauthorised person is not able to reprogram or interfere with the system.
5. Return on investment: Adding IoT capabilities does require an additional budget and it is important that it gives you returns more than your costs. The good part is most of the IoT components like cloud and hardware platforms are available on pay as you go which means you have low sunk costs. You can easily run pilots and take a call if you wish to go ahead.
6. Who will build it for you? : It may not be a good idea to build your system from scratch but instead use a platform that speeds up your development. An excellent option is Bolt IoT Platform (http://www.boltiot.com). Bolt provides you with WiFi/GSM chip to connect to your sensors/actuators and also a cloud platform for storing the data and analysing it.
Are you looking to build an IoT product or looking for an end to end IoT solution for your company? I will be glad to speak to you and guide you on how to go about it. Please fill a short form at www.boltiot.com/app/consult.php and we can schedule a call.
