The first day of IoT Tech Expo Global got off to a busy start, as attendees gathered in London today to learn more about the latest trends, technologies and topics within the IoT industry. IoT Insider spoke to the industry experts present on the show floor to learn more about what they were showcasing.
Satellite IoT
The satellite IoT market has been experiencing significant growth due to the advantages it brings applications where terrestrial infrastructure is minimal and therefore can’t provide the required coverage – something that Liz Wilson, Global Marketing Director at Ground Control, said they were at the event to talk about with attendees.
“It [satellite] used to be expensive, exclusive and for very critical communications,” said Wilson. “That is changing.” Although this future is perhaps not here yet, Wilson said, she believed that in the near future there would be a new class of low-cost satellite IoT solutions that enable people to connect assets that couldn’t have been connected before.
One of Ground Control’s solutions that was on show at the stand was their RockREMOTE Mini OEM, a device that uses the Iridium satellite constellation.
“It’s big because it can send data both via IP messaging, TCP/IP, which is very common, but it can also send data via a messaging platform for satellites,” she explained. “Messaging is far more economical because it’s less power hungry, so it’s what we advocate [for].”
The device would be implemented into an enclosure and require an external antenna to work. The use cases for Ground Control’s solutions include environmental sensing, particularly for the utilities industry, who are looking to monitor and detect wildfires, as well as for mission-critical applications like asset tracking.
From classic beacons to ‘smart’ beacons
Simon Ford, Co-Founder and CEO of Blecon said that they’d observed that the ‘classic beacon’ sector was becoming more aware of the advantages that ‘smart beacons’ such as Blecon’s offered applications such as asset tracking and monitoring, and that was what they were at the event to talk about.
This marked a further step in Blecon’s journey as a startup, who spoke to IoT Insider at Hardware Pioneers in May of last year, where Ford spoke about utilising the “superpower” of Bluetooth Low Energy (LE).
“We were highlighting the ability to use Bluetooth LE as a connectivity technology and that’s been going great, but the observation is that people [who are] wanting to use beacons [want to use it] with security, with communications,” said Ford. “It’s a quite clear objective that people have in their head.”
“If you’re realising LoRaWAN isn’t a good fit for you because of the bandwidth or the power, or cellular isn’t a good fit for you but Bluetooth fits, you’re coming from an IoT connected mindset,” Ford continued. “Whereas, if you’ve come from the beacon world and you’ve realised security is limited, or the ability to capture data is limited, you’re looking for smart beacons.”
Another interesting trend, he added, was seeing how beacons can be embedded into products as opposed to being attached on the outside.
“People understand the move to more intelligence at the edge, need for security, need for management, but I don’t think it’s widely appreciated how embedding it in a product is the next logical step, when you look at the cost of embedding something versus the cost of attaching something.”
Securing IoT networks
John Golden, Regional Director UKI at Nozomi Networks spoke about the company’s expertise as an OT cybersecurity specialist and their movement into IoT six or seven years ago, something they were highlighting at the event. The movement came from a recognition of an explosion in connected IoT devices being deployed and with that, the challenges companies deploying these devices had to address.
“The number of assets and [the] way we identify and secure assets is quite similar between IoT and OT,” he explained. “What’s slightly different is [that] IoT may be more focused around building management systems, for example heating, ventilation, air conditioning, whereas OT is typically more focused around production systems in manufacturing or substations within utilities.”
Golden’s advice to organisations thinking about their own cybersecurity was to first and foremost understand their assets: “They can only secure what they know about. If they don’t have complete visibility and all of their IoT assets, [then] there are gaps.
“The second thing is to understand what vulnerabilities are attached to those assets and at that point, you’ll have a good understanding of your risk profile.”
IoT Insider is exhibiting at IoT Tech Expo Global and will be back for the event tomorrow, and encourages all attendees to come by its stand and learn more about the publication: Stand 102.
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