What are some trends that come to mind when you think of the IoT industry? Global connectivity may spring to mind; so might AIoT (artificial intelligence IoT). The process of identifying, tracking and keeping tabs on trends is not an exact science but requires a similar kind of methodical approach, as outlined by Brad Jolly, Healthcare Technical Specialist, Keysight Technologies in a recent conversation with IoT Insider.
Defining a trend
“There are four kinds of trends I can think of,” explained Jolly. “One is trends that come from hype, I think of fashions … A second is getting a statistical anomaly that people will focus on … The third is an exaggerated, infrequent event … None of these are the kinds of trends that Keysight cares about.”
Instead, Keysight focuses on the fourth: “Long term movement in a given direction that we think is going to be sustainable. It’s not super flashy, but we hope it’ll have enough staying power that we think is going to be worth investing in.”
Identifying trends before they become trends is a pretty good way to hop on the metaphorical bandwagon and invest early, so to speak. Jolly summed it up aptly: “If you wait until a trend becomes a trend, you’ve missed the boat in terms of serving your customers.” Examples of this include 6G, which Jolly said they were talking about years before, and quantum, similarly.
Identifying a trend
How do you know what trends will have “staying power,” to quote Jolly, and what might flicker out before it reaches its full potential? “Number one is conversations with customers,” he said, “and closely related to that is partners and vendors. We work with a lot of vendors and learn from them as well as [learn] what’s going on.”
Keysight also has its own R&D labs, and participates in several industry organisations – both of which are useful sources for understanding topics that are trending, or are becoming more commonly spoken about.
“I’d be lying if I said I am not susceptible to finding a few things in a row and saying, ‘Oh, I’ve identified a trend’,” said Jolly. “Whenever I get something like that I’ll go to the people I trust and ask them about it. I think it’s good not only to have a diversity of sources, but also a diversity of filters that can help you decide whether something is a trend.”
Trends that have petered out, so to speak, is a whole another area of conversation. “One trend that has died down in the IoT is the idea that we can put the word smart before anything, put a sensor there [in a device] and come up with a useful thing,” he explained. “There was a trend towards, what could we put a sensor on? Wouldn’t it be cool if we could put this into an app that monitored this sensor?
“A lot of those didn’t make sense from a business case, and there were a lot of trends that never became trends.”
As another example, the excitement around the potential of “smart” devices and what they meant for the consumer led to lofty predictions about the number of smart devices we’d have in our homes in later years. “One thing I was told around seven or eight years ago is that the average home would have more than 100 IoT devices in it by now,” he said. “That didn’t happen, and it’s not even close.”
2024 trends
Jolly categorised trends he saw this year into two categories: markets and business trends and technology trends.
“From a markets and business trends [perspective], we are seeing growth. There’s no question about that.” Figures vary, Jolly said, but between 10% and 20% a year is an approximate estimate.
Other trends within markets and business include rationalisation and consolidation, where companies are absorbed by larger companies, as well as standards and maturity. “It used to be what we in the US would call a wild west sort of scenario, where everybody was off doing their own thing,” Jolly added. “I think the industry is recognising, primarily for cybersecurity reasons and for interoperability reasons, we need to have more standards.”
Technology trends are looking at “general improvement,” he said. “Things are getting faster, smaller, lower power, more capable, more secure, and that’s all good. The second trend I’m seeing is improved battery life and lower power consumption.”
Cybersecurity and coexistence
The trends Jolly said he saw as “worrisome” were coexistence and cybersecurity, but for different reasons. Coexistence refers to the practice of making sure one wireless device doesn’t interfere with or impact on another. Because the number of radio devices has increased, this has become more of a challenge.
Coexistence differs from cybersecurity, Jolly said, because looking at technological solutions like spectrums and standards could be one approach; whereas cyber attacks are evolving as cyber criminals continue to look for ways to extract data and money, and cannot be controlled.
“What we’re seeing in the world today is organised groups of people spending lots of time and lots of energy trying to hack into large systems,” Jolly stressed. “That’s becoming worse and worse, and I don’t see it slowing [down].”
“I’m very proud to be part of this industry,” Jolly added. In his role specialising in medical IoT, he said: “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get depressed thinking about the money and brain power we spend as a human race on cybersecurity, it’d be nice if we didn’t have to spend that money and could spend it on things that would be of direct help to patients. Ultimately, I have faith that good triumphs over evil in the end.”
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