The Future of the Internet of Things

By many measures, 2018 was the year Internet of Things (IoT) adoption came of age,
both in the consumer and enterprise markets. The number of connected devices
increased 15-20 percent, more enterprise IoT projects were launched or progressed
towards completion, new technologies like cellular IoT changed the landscape, and
the use of turnkey IoT “platforms” (versus those built in-house) expanded
significantly.
These developments are exciting and offer an encouraging outlook for the future. At
Ayla Networks, we’ve always believed the internet is a transformational force that
will eventually drive all things to be powered, digitized, and connected for better
outcomes. When we started our journey eight years ago, there were virtually no
connected devices. Gradually that changed with the advent and growth of smart home
devices for convenience and control. Fast forward to today when IoT has become an
integral part of digital transformation initiatives in commercial and industrial
segments. Our vision is to deliver on the promise of the “Connected Home” and the
“Connected Enterprise,” spanning a wide range of use cases and services including
security, energy management, asset performance, health care efficiency, and risk and
compliance management.
This vision is already becoming a reality in interesting ways. Case in point: A leading
global manufacturer of HVAC systems approached us three years ago with the intent
of developing a new connected product line purely for competitive differentiation
reasons because they believed IoT would be the “in thing.” Today the benefits to their
business goes beyond being cool—not only have they dramatically improved their
service efficiency and cost structure, but they are also achieving unparalleled
operational visibility into their existing deployed assets.
Service providers—such as wireless operators and utilities—are also adopting our IoT
vision to launch new innovative services to stay competitive. One of the largest SPs in
the Asia-Pacific region is using IoT technology to remotely manage tens of thousands
of gas meters leveraging the Narrowband-IoT standard, with implications on smart
city initiatives. Other leading U.S.-based SP companies are looking to transform elder
care management, improve security solutions, and help food services companies better
manage risk with enhanced inventory track and trace capabilities. These are watershed
projects for IoT, and are driving dramatically higher operational efficiencies,
unlocking growth opportunities through data monetization, and delivering much
improved customer experiences.
As we enter 2019, I predict that while the connected home market will continue to see
steady incremental growth, the enterprise IoT sector will pick up exponentially based
on the types of inquiries we’ve fielded from industries as diverse as food
manufacturing, agricultural equipment, coffee brewers, and real estate management,
among others. These are complex use cases with many moving parts and long sales
cycles, but the size of the problems and opportunities for digital transformation are
breathtaking.
2019 will be the year of enterprise IoT, featuring expansion into a wide variety of use
cases and driving meaningful business improvement. The future of IoT is bright, and
it’s rapidly evolving from a technology experiment to a strategic imperative.

In the near future the Internet and wireless technologies will connect different sources
of information such as sensors, mobile phones and cars in an ever tighter manner. The
number of devices which connect to the Internet is – seemingly exponentially –
increasing. These billions of components produce consume and process information in
different environments such as logistic applications, factories and airports as well as in
the work and everyday lives of people. The society need new, scalable, compatible and
secure solutions for both the management of the ever more broad, complexly-networked
Internet of Things, and also for the support of various business models.

The aim of our Internet of Things Strategic Research Agenda is both to create
framework for study within the given field and also to clearly define the central research
objectives.

The next wave in the era of computing will be outside the realm of the traditional
desktop. In the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, many of the objects that surround us
will be on the network in one form or another. Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID)
and sensor network technologies will rise to meet this new challenge, in which
information and communication systems are invisibly embedded in the environment
around us. This results in the generation of enormous amounts of data which have to be
stored, processed and presented in a seamless, efficient, and easily interpretable form.
This model will consist of services that are commodities and delivered in a manner
similar to traditional commodities. Cloud computing can provide the virtual
infrastructure for such utility computing which integrates monitoring devices, storage
devices, analytics tools, visualization platforms and client delivery. The cost based
model that Cloud computing offers will enable end-to-end service provisioning for
businesses and users to access applications on demand from anywhere.

Smart connectivity with existing networks and context-aware computation using

network resources is an indispensable part of IoT. With the growing presence of WiFi
and 4G-LTE wireless Internet access, the evolution towards ubiquitous information and
communication networks is already evident. However, for the Internet of Things vision
to successfully emerge, the computing paradigm will need to go beyond traditional
mobile computing scenarios that use smart phones and portables, and evolve into
connecting everyday existing objects and embedding intelligence into our environment.

For technology to disappear from the consciousness of the user, the Internet of Things
demands:
(1) a shared understanding of the situation of its users and their appliances, (2)
software architectures and pervasive communication networks to process and convey
the contextual information to where it is relevant, and
(3) the analytics tools in the Internet of Things that aim for autonomous and smart
behavior.
With these three fundamental grounds in place, smart connectivity and context-aware
computation can be accomplished.