Ruminations on the Internet of Things
Doesn’t everyone want to manage more stuff?
On fiddling and digging deeper
I’ve been interested in the Internet of Things (aka IoT) for years and even went so far as to get an Arduino prototyping kit and mess around with it. Like many people in the tech industry, I’ve had my share of smart watches, Alexa, and Google Home, Philips Hue lighting, trackers for home health care, security, and various other devices. While interesting and sometimes useful, it’s been obvious that the consumer market for IoT was still in its infancy and was in a similar space in terms of development as e-commerce was 12-15 years ago.
After coming off an IoT project that aimed to secure connected hardware and devices in utilities, factories and refineries, I became more interested in the IoT space as a UX designer; particularly in terms of dealing with the complexity of setup, coordination, data analysis and control. I decided to dive deeper in order to get more grounded as to where things stand today and to discern what efforts might or might be successful on a high level.
Wait, stop. What the heck is IoT?
For those who don’t know, IoT has become a sort of a catch all term for anything connected to the Internet but that isn’t a traditional computer, phone or server; even if those technically fit the bill and are usually integral to it. It was originally used in 1999 by Kevin Asthon from Proctor & Gamble to describe an RFID enabled supply chain optimization. Other similar terms (but not exactly synonymous) exist that have been around are M2M (Machine to Machine communication), Ubiquitous Computing, Smart Systems, and Pervasive Computing, etc. The term IoT seems to have won out as the main description for internet enabled “stuff”. The Gartner Report even created its own category and the Hype was strong a few years back.
Feeling the hype
Gartner has a wonderful 5 phase method of naming the various phases of the Hype Cycle that remind me of a D&D adventure.
These are in order of occurrence: The Technology Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment, and lastly The Plateau of Productivity.
During the Peak, seemingly every company and their brother-in-law was creating internet connected devices including variations of the ever present Internet Fridge, toothbrushes, spoons to monitor how much you ate to mysterious bunny sculptures that would indicate if you had a new notification among other things.
Since then, enthusiasm for Consumer based IoT has waned because of various challenges in hardware, consumer demand, and privacy issues. The complexity of integrating all that stuff into people’s lives has often had a damping effect on usage and adoption. These products are still being rolled out, but to a lesser degree.
On the Enterprise side, things have been moving along more steadily but they’ve encountered similar challenges. More on that in a little bit.
Warning, opinions ahead!
This is where I really start to Ruminate.
In IoT right now, we seem to be in the Trough but perhaps climbing the Slope on our way to the Plateau, at least in the Enterprise space.
From what I can see, the Trough really has to do with Fragmentation and treating IoT as a Magic One Trick Pony. Fragmentation means too much incompatible hardware or too many hoops to jump through to integrate them, disparate UI, limited connectivity, conflicting protocols, poor battery or limited power options, bandwidth/ data limits and the desire of many companies to be the “one provider” of IoT ecosystems leading to the reality of no ecosystem.
Most of all, it’s about the actual derived value factored against effort and cost either on the consumer or enterprise side.
Yes, yes you say, but what’s this about a Pony?
Magic One Trick Ponies
Aside from really dedicated Makers, early adopters, and tech enthusiasts most people don’t seem to be that interested in creating and maintaining a “smart home”. They do use things like fitness devices that are internet enabled or devices like Alexa, “smart” lights, or smart TV’s and dryers that can send you a message when they’re done. Many people use security systems like Ring as well. However, integrating all these systems and getting them to talk to each, behave intelligently and keep you in the loop can be a real challenge.
Most people just don’t have the motivation to make it happen. Let’s not even talk about the privacy and security issues involved. As of this writing, Amazon rolled out its Sidewalk initiative enabling a mesh network which opts you into sharing your network with other Amazon devices nearby. You need to opt out. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside doesn’t it?
Getting back to the topic at hand, I call this kind of device use, the Magic One Trick Pony or more accurately an Internet Enabled Device. So yeah, they’re technically an IoT device which is cool and often sort of useful. But they come with an amount of overhead which increases as you use them and connect them to each other. Did we mention if they go out of business, your device may not work anymore?
I do remember the magic moment when I turned off my lights by commanding Alexa to do so. Such a feeling of empowerment! As the years went by, I’ve also felt disempowered when I tell her to do it and she claims the lights aren’t connected or she doesn’t understand what I said because the Philips Hue Smarthub has gone offline. Nevermind if someone in the house decided to turn the light off manually so it can’t be turned on digitally.
Sometimes I tell myself, “Mario, turn off Mario Light” then reach over and turn off my bedside lamp.
Now, that’s real empowerment and a bit of a workout! Maybe it’s really a workout device? Yes, I know, First World Problems...
That said, it’s problems like that multiplied by ten which have impeded general mainstream adoption of IoT products and services because at a certain point you’re not dealing with a One Trick Pony, you’re in fact dealing with…
… the IoT Circus
Do you want to be a ringleader not just managing Ponies (smart lights) but also Lions (Security systems) who may or may not want to cooperate with the Ponys? What about the Clowns in the Car (Garage door opener systems), or the Dancing Penguins (Heating/Cooling systems) or the Strong Man (health monitoring devices)?
OK, maybe I’m stretching a metaphor too far but I hope you get the idea. Really, a better metaphor might be an orchestra but I kind of like the absurdity and chaos implied in a circus.
Most people are simply not motivated to manage them all. The key words there are Motivation and Management.
Single or small groups of devices that are internet enabled can often be of value or sometimes are simply just a fun gimmick. The real value comes in their integration or rather the data being generated broadly across devices and the actions that can be taken based on that data to predict outcomes, prevent problems or remotely control. In other words, the instrumenting of the “real” world. Who really has the most to gain from connecting devices in this way?
Organizations.
Crack that whip
I use the word Organizations because it implies a group structure, roles and rules. In my opinion, that’s what it takes to make real IoT happen. This encompasses so-called Industrial IoT (IIOT) with factories and whatnot, Agriculture, Commercial (Buildings and Retail), and Government (aka Smart Cities, etc.). In an organizational structure, you theoretically can have people dedicated who have the resources and expertise to purchase, setup and, most of all, maintain, upgrade and manage IoT systems.
These devices are in fact, really “employees” of the organization.
Much like employees, they need to be setup/onboarded, often have a budget (real cost, limited battery power, bandwidth charges for connectivity, etc.), trained (if using machine learning), retrained (upgraded), need conflict resolution (hardware/software conflicts, deal with quirks), sickness (repairs), performance evaluations (cost/benefit analysis) and eventually may need to be replaced or be made obsolete (the maker goes out of business). In a word, they need management.
On the consumer side, this is a barrier. It can be a barrier on the org side as well but if the cost/benefit merits it, orgs are in a better position to deal with the overhead not to mention the Fragmentation mentioned in the preceding section near the top of this post.
Getting Bang for the Buck
In truth, many orgs may find themselves sucked into chasing the same cool factor as the average consumer. We need it because everyone else seems to be doing it. Many initiatives seem to have been stuck in the Prototyping phase because the actual motivation and justification wasn’t clear and that’s also contributed to the feeling of being in the Trough of Disappointment.
From what I’ve discerned, hooking things up just to hook them up is not worth doing. You need to make sure that you’ll either save money or increase profits and opportunities by doing so.
As in any business decision, does the value returned justify the cost and effort involved in making it happen?
Some low hanging fruit seem to be anything that involves needing to monitor many disparate objects/places over time and distance where understanding the state and being able to take action or coordinate the devices or organization (humans are part of the system too) on live data would make a difference. Can you leverage that data to increase the lifespan of something critical (predictive maintenance) or control something from afar that would generally need to involve an actual human quickly or frequently? Is the sum of the parts greater than the whole (aka a Gestalt)?
Starting from a data value and/or control first perspective as opposed a device first perspective appears to be a critical factor in determining whether an IoT initiative is a success or failure.
Technology should be a means to an end, not the end itself.
Automation - It’s Happening
So, while I believe the Consumer IoT space will continue to be Trick Ponies, the Org IoT space has been moving along steadily. I think real Circus/Gestalt Org based IoT is poised for positive growth over the medium and long term, if fragmentation issues, actual use cases of value (real ROI) are present and a management mentality is applied to device networks.
As with many things regarding technology, I have mixed feelings about automation (of which IoT is a part) and its effect on society in terms of jobs, inequality, privacy, control and a host of other issues.
The reality is that it’s going to come.
Despite short term problems with fragmentation and management, the long term advantages and benefits are too great, particularly for larger organizations. I believe that Org IoT is where E-commerce was ten years ago. Initially something novel but then seen an integral to typical operations.
Eventually, it will filter out to the consumer space once the predominant players have consolidated, like Amazon, and/or real General Purpose Intelligence AI becomes a reality (making management less of a chore).
From a UX standpoint, the space is quite interesting because of the need for orchestration across a range of products, services, demographics and use cases. Hopefully, the aforementioned benefits can make their way to the general public (e.g. automation dividend supporting Basic Income, cheaper, better foods, new methods of dealing with climate change, better distributed/preventative health care systems, etc.). That said, it is contingent on all involved, designers and developers included, to be aware of privacy, ecological and the sociological implications of our work to influence a better tomorrow.
