31 May Internet of Things Impact
In one of our news bulletins earlier this year we touched on the Internet of Things and the impact that it’s starting to have across all industries.
It is reported that in the next 10 to 20 years, there will be 1 trillion devices connected on the IoT.
If you’re new to the Internet of Things and unsure of what it is or means, in the simplest terms it’s where one device talks to another device via the ‘internet’.
A good example of this would be a home thermostat which you can connect to your phone, so when you’re out and you want to ensure your house isn’t too hot or too cold, you use the app on your mobile phone (or tablet) to adjust the temperature in your home for when you arrive. If you own a smartwatch and it’s connected to your phone via an app then that’s the IoT at work right there on your wrist.
If the Internet of Things can have this kind of impact on people’s everyday life, imagine the impact it can have on managing a business and improving efficiency in all areas.
One industry the IoT is already impacting in a positive way is cars and car manufacture which is a subject close to our hearts being that we do a great deal of work with clients in this area.
The IoT is helping the automotive industry develop way faster than anyone could have imagined and it’s an exciting time to be living in with this rapid development of technology.
It will be necessary for car manufacturers, those involved in the production of cars and businesses such as car insurers to utilise IoT smart tech or face falling behind their competition because those who don’t evolve and keep up with this rapid pace will undoubtedly dissolve.
Companies and brands that you currently think are the leaders in their field, statistics tell us that in just a few years they won’t be, and you might not even remember who they were because those companies and brands that already have their finger on the digital pulse are climbing the ladder very fast, and will likely reach the top of it a heck of a lot quicker than their less digitally developed counterparts.
In the early stages of IoT development, the benefits have been focused on enhancing how the car is formed and its performance (all still relevant of course), but attention is now also being directed toward how the consumer will experience the car from within, this is where the IoT can really impress.
The intelligence of vehicles could now help resolve issues and allow fixes with the vehicle without the customer even getting involved at all. The car talks to the datacenter to say there’s a technical error, data centre fixes technical error, car continues to work safely and effectively without the driver having to do a thing. It could be as simple as applying a software update and the issues would be resolved.
The Internet of Things is going to provide solutions to everyday problems you didn’t even know you had, and there’s no escaping it, it’s coming, so we may as well all get on board and embrace this rapid development in technology or face being left behind.
The main concerns for the public and consumers are privacy and security. It makes sense for companies who apply IoT to their products and services do so with these two concerns at the top of their planning if the Internet of Things is truly going to take off as expected.
Although self drive cars are still in their infancy, it is expected that they will start to enter the mainstream around 2020. We already have a new and exciting wave of technology in car manufacture though and that’s in the form of smart cars.
Smart driving assist has been around for a while already but it’s now become pretty mainstream in the most basic of cars. Vehicle tracking, call connectivity and in-car entertainment are all ways in which your car now connects across devices to enhance your driving experience but manufacturers are taking it even further…
In the future the consumer will likely choose a car because of what the journey will provide them and not by the traditional metrics of what a car is in 2018.
Over the coming years as the smart cities and smart cars develop, the driver and/or passengers won’t need to think about where to park, the car will take you to the best parking space available for you, you don’t have to punch in a postcode, you can just verbalise it and the car will do the rest.
Truthfully we don’t yet know the full capabilities of what these smart connected cars will be able to do because the software hasn’t even been developed yet but the future looks interesting that’s for sure.