Confusion reigns when it comes to the Internet of Things, or so it appears. Perhaps it’s no surprise because the IoT is not only a technology with no solid definition, it’s also a buzz phrase which has been adopted with abandon by all manner of companies.
An indication of the confusion surrounding the technology came in a recently published article. Purporting to address the top 10 IoT innovators, this article named crowdfunding website Kickstarter as the leading IoT innovator.
Market analyst Gartner has taken a look a closer look at the IoT in two of its recent Hype Cycle analyses – one focuses entirely on the IoT, the other includes IoT as one of a bunch of emerging technologies.
The Hype Cycle has five main areas: the innovation trigger; the peak of inflated expectations; the trough of disillusionment; the slope of enlightenment; and the plateau of productivity. It also gives an estimate of how long it will take a particular technology to reach the plateau of productivity – mainstream adoption.
In the Emerging Technologies hype cycle, the IoT is positioned right at the top of the peak of inflated expectations, which says a lot about the current state of the technology. And Gartner says it will be at least five years before the IoT becomes mainstream.
In the IoT Hype cycle, marooned at the peak of inflated expectations – where technologies fail to live up to their billing – are such applications as wearables and home energy management, while those approaching the trough of disillusionment, include personal health management and automobile IP nodes.
Interestingly, one app that is ‘on the up’ in the Hype Cycle is enterprise manufacturing intelligence and that ties in nicely with Vodafone’s latest M2M Barometer report, which says 48% of respondents are applying ‘Big Data’ approaches to their M2M data. The survey interviewed 650 executives from 16 countries working in seven industry sectors. Of these, 90% say M2M is relevant to their company and 83% of respondents say their M2M projects have brought them competitive advantage.
M2M – also being called the industrial IoT – has been kicking around for more than 15 years with varying degrees of success. It just goes to show how long it can take for technology to mature.
