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Top Trends
in IoT: Video Services, Smart Home, Health & Mobile 24 April 2015 - by Stuart Sikes, President, Parks Associates (sponsored) |
2015 is a year of intense experimentation in new value
propositions for advanced technologies and services. Multiple sectors within
the connected home are facing new competition and an increased emphasis on
differentiation strategies and expanded offerings. Each area presents its own
unique challenges and value propositions.
Pay TV, OTT &
Streaming Media
While broadband penetration growth has slowed in mature
markets, high competition is driving an industry push to ever-faster service
tiers. Pay TV is experiencing a similar pattern in global growth—fast-paced
adoption in emerging markets and heightened competition in developed markets.
For the past few years, non-linear video has claimed larger
percentages of consumer viewing hours. The video content market is seeing a
fundamental shift in how viewers watch programming, requiring a new definition
of what is called “television.”
Streaming is now a feature on almost every connectable
device, including smart TVs, gaming consoles, tablets, and smartphones. Pay-TV
operators are evaluating entry into the OTT streaming market, which will
increase the competition for viewers.
Smart Devices &
Home Energy Management
Consumers are becoming more aware of smart devices that help
them manage their home’s electricity usage. Highly differentiated smart
products are capturing a significant slice of the overall market. For example, 42%
of broadband households that are likely to purchase a smart thermostat are
willing to pay a premium for a thermostat with advanced features.
Consumers view energy management services as interesting and
even desirable, but when bundled together, these value-add services become
attractive enough that a significant percentage of consumers are willing to pay
for a package of services.
As consumers adopt more smart devices, interoperability
becomes more important. Nearly two-thirds of devices purchased in 2014 were
part of a home controls or security system.
Safety and security remain the leading value propositions
for smart devices; however, 70% of smart device owners are concerned about
unauthorized access to their home control devices as well as to the data those
devices generate.
As a result of the entry of consumer technology brands into
the tech support market, the industry has grown significantly over the past
five years. For many brands, providing comprehensive technical support is a
means of strengthening customer relationships in the face of intense
competition and a rapidly evolving technology environment.
Health & Mobile
Opportunities
Prospects for the global connected health industry have
brightened. Strategic and tactical changes within the industry have gradually
made an impact and fostered creation of new services and care models. Although
each country may have a different growth path and its own set of unique
challenges, all are experimenting with collaborative approaches among the
government/insurers, the care providers, and technology partners.
Sixty-eight percent of mobile subscribers prefer buying a
smartphone at full price and paying a lower monthly service fee and having no
contract. Traditional device subsidy models to drive smartphone sales are
falling apart; instead, mobile carriers need to continue to experiment with
pricing models to reach a happy medium.
No matter the category, the dominant leaders emerging this
year will be the companies that leverage consumer demand and expectations to
provide a personalized and valuable user experience.
Join industry leaders at Parks Associates’ 19th
annual CONNECTIONS Conference, May 19-21 in San Francisco. www.connectionsus.com |
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Mesh is the Key for Bluetooth’s Evolution for the IoT 17 April 2015 - by Maxine Bingham, Editor-in-Chief
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It was clear from the many panels and discussions at Bluetooth World 2015 that WiFi and Bluetooth
will co-exist for Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity for a good long while
to come. However, being a Bluetooth-focused event led to a number of discussions
around the next evolution of Bluetooth (BT), and, per our interest, especially
for the IoT.
The answer was BT’s evolution first into BT Smart, and then
into a mesh networking typology in order to address some of the limitations of
BT, such as range and reliability. This basically moves BT from a star
configuration that can connect a few devices to a mesh network that can connect
hundreds. Bluetooth mesh is thus an important connectivity architecture for the
connected home and the IoT in general, where hundreds, if not thousands, of
devices are connected for a single enterprise.
According to Webopedia: “Bluetooth
is defined as being a short-range radio technology (or wireless technology)
aimed at simplifying communications among Internet devices and between devices
and the Internet. It also aims to simplify data synchronization between
Internet devices and other computers. Bluetooth products -- that is products
using Bluetooth technology -- must be qualified and pass interoperability
testing by the Bluetooth Special Interest
Group (SIG) prior to release. Bluetooth's founding members include
Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba.” As Wikipedia notes
correctly, “A mesh network is a network topology in
which each node relays data for the network. All mesh nodes cooperate in the
distribution of data in the network.”
The advantages of a mesh network typology for Bluetooth
include:
- Extending its current range of 30 meters to
about 100 meters from a single device to up to 100 meters from the edge of the
mesh.
- Ability to connect entire homes or buildings
- No need for connecting through a hub or PC
- Easier and less costly to manage
- Based on low energy Bluetooth Smart for low
power consumption
- Increased reliability since nodes in the network
can act as backup for other nodes;
messages can be re-routed as needed
- Will co-exist with WiFi (as does BT Smart)
For example, Avi-On Labs,
in cooperation with CSR, notes that their mesh
network for connected, smart lighting enables “wiring without the wires,” according
to Avi-On General Manager Dana Kunz.

The Bluetooth Smart Mesh Networking Group is, according to
BT mesh networking inventor, the CSR Fellow, for Global Standards, Robin
Heydon, on a fast track and expected before 2016. CSR has donated some of its CSR
Mesh networking code to the organization, in what it hopes will become the
foundation for the BT mesh networking standard.
Since the BT mesh networking standard is not yet here, a
number of companies, such as CSR have developed proprietary BT mesh networks
that they believe can probably be upgraded via firmware once the standard is
ratified by the Bluetooth SIG. Another such company is Seed (whom IoT
Perspectives profiled) with their newly-branded Silvair mesh network for
connected home devices, also starting with lighting. Avi-On’s first OEM
customer for their lighting solution is Jasco, who provide GE-branded lighting
switches; Seed’s is Soraa, will soon launch wirelessly connected LED lamps
using LEDs built from pure gallium nitride substrates (GaN on GaN). Soraa’s
co-founder, by the way, is Nobel Laureate Shuji Nakamura.
While Bluetooth Smart-based mesh network is an enabling
technology, CSR Fellow Robin Heydon makes a great point when he told us that
they key for IoT success is for IoT devices to be smarter, and be able to make
inferences. For example, as soon as one walks up to one’s door, the door should
open, desired heat and lighting turn on, and music play. As we interpret his
vision, it’s for the connected home, for example, to be a smart system that
requires no human intervention once parameters are set. Today, we have point
IoT devices for the home, tomorrow we’ll see the kind of smart system that
Robin envisions. |
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Photo of Robin Heydon at Bluetooth World courtesy of IoT Perspectives © 2015 IoT Perspectives |
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LoRa Alliance Fueling First IoT Network in France 2 April 2015 - by Maxine Bingham, Editor-in-Chief |
The LoRa Alliance was announced this year at CES in January, and has its first widespread commercial implementation by Bouygues Telecom in France.
Developed by the French company Cycleo (based in Grenoble, and a subsidiary of IC manufacturer Semtech since 2012), LoRa is a low-power wide-area (LPWA) technology that enables smart devices to share small packets of data, with autonomy of up to 10 years with standard batteries.
According to the Bouygues Telecom, LoRa’s ability to respond to the wide-ranging demands of large industrial customers (excellent penetration in buildings or in basement spaces, bi-directional and secure communications, mobile devices, geolocation services, etc.) makes it, from a user standpoint, the most advanced technology for the Internet of Things (IoT).
Since November 2013, the city of Grenoble has been the setting for a unique experiment, the first of its kind in the world. For 16 months, Bouygues Telecom, its international partners (Semtech, Sagemcom, Eolane, Adeunis and Kerlink) and several major industrial customers have been testing LoRa technology and assessing its performance in real-life conditions.
Bolstered by the results of this trial, Bouygues Telecom has now announced the launch of France’s first IoT network, based on LoRa technology, in close collaboration with Semtech. Abroad, major operators like KPN, Swisscom, Belgacom and Fastnet are in the process of deploying LoRa networks or carrying out large-scale trials. The IoT network, to be opened as early as June in Issy-les-Moulineaux and a part of Paris, will use the “high points” of the Bouygues Telecom network that boasts more than 15,000 sites. From the end of the year, around 500 towns and cities will be covered by this IoT network, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Rennes, Nantes, Montpellier and Angers.
Outside of France, major operators like KPN, Swisscom, Belgacom and Fastnet are in the process of deploying LoRa networks or carrying out large-scale trials.
Olivier Roussat, Chairman and CEO of Bouygues Telecom said: “The Internet of Things is going to transform entire areas of our economy. Thanks to the expertise and the infrastructures of Bouygues Telecom, we will be able to quickly offer nationwide coverage with a high-quality service.”
“The pilot scheme carried out with Bouygues Telecom is a world first that has enabled us to improve LoRa protocols further. Its long-standing involvement in the development of our technology and its ceaseless work to improve it within the LoRa Alliance has made Bouygues Telecom one of the world’s leading experts in IoT technology. We are now impatient to rise to the challenges of its future customers within the framework of their network rollout,” said Alain Dantec, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Semtech.
According to the alliance, LoRa boasts unique properties that make it the most advanced technology of its kind in the IoT field, enabling it to be deployed for a wide range of activities and uses. It enables public or multi-tenant networks to connect multiple applications into the same network infrastructure, which will enable new applications for IoT, M2M, smart city, sensor networks and industrial automation applications, the alliance says. Device manufacturers and developers are proposing solutions at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) with longer battery lifetime that often do not need a powerful cellular connection. They believe that projected IoT volumes can only be reached with a global approach to drive TCO lower.
“To encourage the mass adoption of low cost, long range machine-to-machine connectivity, open ecosystems are critical,” said Dr. Thorsten Kramp, Master Inventor, IBM Research. “In addition to IBM's support of the LoRa Alliance, we have also released the IBM ‘LoRaWAN in C’ as open source under the Eclipse Public License, which provides a solid foundation for the development of a broad range of end devices compliant with the LoRaWAN specifications.”
Initial alliance members include leading IoT solution providers: Actility, Cisco, Eolane, IBM, Kerlink, IMST, MultiTech, Sagemcom, Semtech, and Microchip Technology, as well as lead telecom operators: Bouygues Telecom, KPN, SingTel, Proximus, Swisscom, and FastNet (part of Telkom South Africa). For more information, visit lora-alliance.org
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Images Courtesy of the LoRa Alliance
© 2015 IoT Perspectives |
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Top Takeaway from Wearables TechCon: Innovations are in
Industrial I-On-the Trends 16 March, 2015 - By Maxine Bingham, Editor-in-Chief |
Have had a few days of reflection about the wearables
industry after attending Wearables
TechCon in Santa Clara, and the main takeaway is that innovation in
wearables in happening – gasp – in the industrial arena, and coming "down" into
the consumer space.
For example, we spent time with a number of exhibitors
demonstrating some remarkable industrial wearables technology: in the virtual
reality for industry space was Epson and one of its partners, Metaio, and, P2i, with its
seemingly mag ical invisible, water-proof nano-coating for millions of devices.
While
known as a printer company, Epson has remarkable projection technology that it
has designed into its Moverio smart glasses, the world's first (they claim)
Android-based, see-through wearable displays. Featuring a head set with
micro-projection technology and a compact Android-powered controller. The
glasses fit easily over mine, and, it was the sharpest, and largest, headset
display I’ve experienced, with the graphics projected as an 80-inch perceived
screen.
Metaio, the “augmented reality (AR)
company…serves over 140,000 developers with over 50,000 published apps. In
total, Metaio's AR software reaches over 250 million consumers around the
world. Founded in 2003, Metaio began by offering AR to the industrial and
automotive sectors for product design and factory planning. Twelve years later,
the company offers a mobile development platform while continuing to create
customized AR solutions to support brands, such as Epson, all over the world.”
With
the Moverio BT-200 smart glasses and the Metaio optical tool, service
technicians, for instance, can see digital maintenance information attached to
systems in their field of view, while game developers can create immersive
games that seamlessly merge the virtual and physical worlds. The tool is
now part of Metaio’s Junaio AR software development kit (SDK) serving more than
80,000 developers worldwide. The Junaio AR browser, which is capable of
“seeing” in 3D, allows augmented reality experiences beyond 2D printed markers.
Available for free, the Junaio AR browser allows users to access thousands of
augmented reality experiences from developers all around the world. The Junaio
platform is available for users and developers to explore at http://www.junaio.com/junaio-mirage/
According
to its web site: P2i is the world leader in
liquid repellent nano-coating technology. P2i’s patented technology lowers the
surface energy of products by developing an ultrathin polymer layer on all
surfaces. This acts to keep the item ‘neutral’ and therefore reduces the
disruption of intermolecular bonds within a liquid. Now instead of being
attracted and spreading out on a product, liquids remain in droplet form and
easily move away from the surfaces. For complex three-dimensional products such
as smartphones and tablets, the low surface energy means liquids are not drawn
through the device by means of capillary action. This surface modification
dramatically increases the reliability of electronic devices as they are
protected from the effects of corrosion and water damage. P2i's technology is
indicated in the Electronics sector by either its splash-proof or “Dunkable”
nano-coatings. In the Lifestyle sector, the technology is known as “ion-mask,”
while the P2i brand is used for industrial applications, such as those found in
the Filtration and Life Sciences sectors.
They
had an amazing demonstration at their booth. First, you’re given a regular
paper tissue. Dunk in a vat of water – and, of course, it’s soaked. Then, you’re
given the same kind of paper tissue that’s been coated with an invisible hydrophobic
30-nanometer coating– dunk it in the water – and voila! The water beads up and
flows right off. These are the same techniques used by semiconductor processing
to put thin layers on wafers. They have coated millions of devices, such as
smartphones, to make them water-resistant.

Visiting
these companies, and speaking with others, such as Augumenta, also gesture-based VR glasses for industrial use,
cemented that wearables are a multi-billion market, but one which has its
leadership in industrial (i.e., repair and maintenance) and enterprise (i.e.,
retail) applications.
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Photos of Eric Mizufuka, Epson Product Manager, and Matthew Schmidt for Augumenta by IoT Perspectives
© 2015 IoT Perspectives |
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Apple Watch is Bringing Us to Places We Can’t Even Imagine 11 March - by Yoram Mizrachi, CTO and founder, Perfecto Mobile Sponsored blog - beautifully written! |
Apple did what Apple does best this last week, they
previewed a new device which was not the first of its kind (we've got a lot of
smart watches in our cloud!) but definitely the most anticipated. And as the
founder of Perfecto Mobile,
getting to play with gadgets is a huge perk of the job for me. Apple, Android,
bring it on - I love my gadgets. I'm particularly enthused about Apple Watch
because I truly believe that it will take us to places we can't even imagine
right now.
Apple Watch is going to do great things for the wearables
market. Like I mentioned, we all know this isn't the first smart watch, but
it's going to be the one to push the limits of innovation. The biggest
challenge for companies who want to develop for wearables is going to be
defining a business case. Uber, Starwood and Instagram are on it, but the rest
of companies need to evaluate how to find value in developing apps for wearables.
My prediction? It's going to take a bit. The real business value of apps
working on smart watches and wearables won't come until the beginning of 2016,
as a second wave of wearable apps rolls through. And even though this is a bit
delayed from the initial market launch, it still wouldn't happen without the
release of Apple Watch. Now we're really, really paying attention to wearables!
Naturally I consider the impact to testing when situations
arise like the launch of a new device. The Apple Watch is yet another screen to
add to the device testing matrix, that's for sure. But it's more than that.
Since we're paying more attention to wearables, we should pay attention to all
of them. If you're going to develop apps for smart watches, for instance, there
are several Android options. No two screens are the same, and for the first
time in history, we're forced to develop a UI for a round display because of
the moto 360 from Motorola. Samsung Gear has several screen options, including
the Samsung Gear Fit Smart Watch, which is a long and narrow display. Just like
with mobile devices, each relevant device needs UI testing to ensure the app
renders correctly. Internally we call this "Any Glass" - where
transactions might start on an iPad, go through a phone and end on a laptop.
Users expect transactions to work across any, well, "glass" whether
it be from a tablet, phone or laptop. Pretty soon it could be time to add a
wearable screen to the mix!
Apple Watch is also increasing the relevancy of sensor-based
apps. Starwood is planning to let you open
your hotel room door with the watch, and I believe this is only the
beginning. With innovation around sensor technology, here I think we're going
to see functionality arise that we don't even know about yet.
Sensor testing can be challenging, as functionality is
proximity based. As use cases develop, I see the need for a hybrid cloud
testing lab become more relevant. This is one use case that likely requires 3rd
party devices to be in close proximity of each other, having a testing solution
that lets you plug devices-in-hand into a cloud environment is going to become
more relevant.
The flexibility of keeping devices, like wearables, hosted
in a cloud or on your desk really lets the user choose how to test. In fact,
we've seen this topic come up so much lately that we're
hosting a webinar on Wednesday, March 18th, on the topic - Testing
Wearables. If you're thinking about developing on or integrating with
wearables, come and get a taste of how you can enable your agile process on
these new devices. {NOTE: The webinar is ended but archive is available.]
These are my initial thoughts on Apple Watch - I can't wait
to get them in our cloud and test them out next month!
Yoram Mizrachi is the CTO and Co-Founder of Perfecto Mobile. Learn more about agile real-device app testing and Perfecto
Mobile at www.perfectomobile.com |
Photos of Yoram Mizrachi and Apple Watch Courtesy of Perfecto Mobile |
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HP Acquires Aruba Networks in Bid to Dominate Enterprise WLAN/M2M
Comms 2 March 2015 - by Maxine Bingham, Editor-in-Chief |
Today HP
announced a definitive agreement for it to acquire Aruba Networks, a leading provider of
next-generation network access solutions for the mobile enterprise, for $24.67
per share in cash. The equity value of the transaction is approximately
$3.0 billion, and net of cash and debt approximately $2.7 billion. Both
companies' boards of directors have approved the deal.
According to the press release:
“Aruba is a Sunnyvale-based industry leader in wireless
networking with approximately 1,800 employees. The company had revenues of
$729 million in fiscal 2014, and has reported compound annual revenue growth of
30 percent over the last five years.
Aruba boasts a highly regarded innovation engine and
specialized sales, marketing and channel model, complementing HP's leading
networking business and go-to-market breadth.
Together, HP and Aruba will deliver next-generation
converged campus solutions, leveraging the strong Aruba brand. This new combined
organization will be led by Aruba's Chief Executive Officer Dominic Orr, and
Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Keerti Melkote, reporting to Antonio
Neri, leader of HP Enterprise Group. With this move, HP will be uniquely
positioned to deliver both the innovation and global delivery and services
offerings to meet customer needs worldwide.
With the shift to mobile, enterprise networking needs are
exceeding the capabilities of legacy infrastructure. At the same time,
organizations are shifting rapidly to mobility-centric workplaces for their
employees, guests, customers and students. The next-generation 802.11ac Wi-Fi
standard is critical in enabling this trend. This new technology will support
the faster speeds and access to cloud applications that end-users
expect. Enterprises need comprehensive, integrated and secure networking
solutions to help them transition legacy systems to the wireless
edge. Today's announcement directly addresses these market trends.
“‘Enterprises are facing a mobile-first world and are
looking for solutions that help them transition legacy investments to the new
style of IT," said Meg Whitman, Chairman, President and Chief Executive
Officer of HP. "By combining Aruba's world-class wireless mobility
solutions with HP's leading switching portfolio, HP will offer the simplest,
most secure networking solutions to help enterprises easily deploy
next-generation mobile networks.’”
Reading between the lines, in concert with HP’s announcement
of its IoT
platform for service providers, IoT Perspectives believes that this
positions HP to attempt to dominate the enterprise IoT wireless communications
market for the enterprise, via a high-performance Wi-Fi WLAN (wireless LAN)/machine to machine (M2M)
communications move. |
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Apical Introduces the ART and Spirit of the Smart Home 2 March 2015 - by Ron Bingham, Technology Editor & Sr. Analyst
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Today, Apical, the London-based semiconductor IP company
introduced, what I believe, is a breakthrough enabling technology, ART (Apical
Resident Technology) for the smart home. It solves a number of problems that
have been barriers to smart home adoption, such as ease of use, privacy and
reliability. Apical has encapsulated in a couple of square millimeters of
silicon the capability to visually recognize every individual in the home and
determine each person’s intent. These video processing tasks previously required
the services of a supercomputer.

Architecture Overview
At the base level Apical's anthro-sensing on-chip Spirit technology
extracts in real time from a video sensor who the people are it sees (identity),
where they are relative to the sensor, what they are doing such as standing up,
siting down or moving (trajectory), which direction they are facing and
looking (pose), and what kind of things they are doing with their hands
(gesture). This technology can be embedded in a wide view video sensor
or as an appliance. This data stream can be processed locally by appliances and
sensors or can be sent to the ART local hub to be processed. Further, for deep
data analysis, abstracted data can be sent to an Internet-connected ART cloud server.

Combining these four pieces of real time data from the devices
and sensors, ART can perform the following kinds of things: Recognize you as
you approach your front door with an armload of groceries, unlock and open the
door for you eliminating fumbling for keys and then light your way to the
kitchen all without requiring a smart phone or any other device to identify
you. It can recognize when you lay down in bed and dim or turn out the lights
and if you get up in the middle of the night it can turn on night lights as you
make your way to the bathroom. It can allow you, but not your children, to turn
off the smoke alarm with a look and hand gesture. It can report how many hours
the kids spent sitting and watching television. These are just a few of the
many possibilities for which ART can be used in a smart home to take care of
its occupants.
In this whole process no video is captured or transmitted outside
the home, ensuring your privacy and security while eliminating high Internet bandwidth demands. Spirit’s video bandwidth compression is
equivalent to 100,000 to one.
The key to the success of any new class of technology is that it
replaces a function that already exists and does so more conveniently and
inexpensively. So, what current functions will the smart home replace? So far
it’s been mostly one for one replacements for such things as
expensive thermostats, smoke detectors and door locks. Nobody but a few gadget
buffs want or will buy a “smart home” per
se. What function then will the smart home have to provide to make people want
it?
For millennia people have had personal assistants, butlers, maids
and servants. Why? They want to be taken care of. The human being is unique in
the animal kingdom for the amount of care and length of time they are cared for
at the beginning of life and at its end. The smart home to be a successful
technology must take care of people – not the other way around. This is the
promise of Apical’s ART with its silicon-based Spirit
technology.
Apical could just be the company that makes the smart home a “killer
App” for IoT. |
Diagrams Courtesy of Apical © IoT Perspectives 2015 |
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