4 ms·

Do you have any thoughts on why? Lack of competition, race to the bottom on prices, incompetence, or some kind of vendor lock-in?

by bgentry 10y ago

raarts 10y ago
The consumer doesn't want it? I don't have anything IoT in my home. Why spend hundreds/thousands to: replace my thermostat with an app, make all of my lights remote controlled, motorize my blinds, and what else is there? It's just spending a lot of money and time for hardly any perceived advantage. Combine this with the fact the average consumer is very cash-strapped in these times.
- bgentry 10y ago
  I was asking about industrial IoT specifically as the parent mentioned experience with that.
- zyxley 10y ago
  Motorized blinds should have a simple and incredibly useful killer feature for literally anyone living in a city: the blinds automatically close when you go to bed, and automatically open a little while before your alarm clock goes off. The fact that getting something this simple this set up takes technical chops and a ton of cash is a massive failure on the part of the companies making these devices.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  > The consumer doesn't want it? Is that true though? Isn't the massive influx of cash into these proving the opposite? I see this sentiment a lot. "I don't see the point of smart things, so nobody must want them!" But that just isn't true. There's a lot of benefits to be had, and a lot of people want them.
meddlepal 10y ago
Mostly the latter two. So Industrial IoT is usually Enterprise sales and price isn't (often) an issue and there is plenty of competition in theory but vendor lock-in prevents easy interop. The big backend software platform vendors often get exclusive partnerships with the hardware vendors which then means if you want to use the device with a different backend you're in for a world of pain. You also have some vendors with massive NIH syndrome so rather than investing in MQTT or COAP they go off and design a new protocol that nobody speaks. At the same time the software is usually just a mix of bad to meh. A lot of companies have retrofitted themselves as SaaS Industrial IoT outfits after having spent 15 years in industrial automation doing something that sort of looks like IoT but isn't. You cannot just pivot so easily - tech, culture, operations etc. I've seen factory control plane agents (the stuff used to make a touch screens in factories that workers monitor to see stats or operate machines) get retrofitted into massive data collection tools that are completely arcane to modify or extend.

Do you have any thoughts on why? Lack of competition, race to the bottom on prices, incompetence, or some kind of vendor lock-in?

by bgentry 10y ago

Do you have any thoughts on why? Lack of competition, race to the bottom on prices, incompetence, or some kind of vendor lock-in?

raarts 10y ago

The consumer doesn't want it? I don't have anything IoT in my home. Why spend hundreds/thousands to: replace my thermostat with an app, make all of my lights remote controlled, motorize my blinds, and what else is there? It's just spending a lot of money and time for hardly any perceived advantage. Combine this with the fact the average consumer is very cash-strapped in these times.

bgentry 10y ago
I was asking about industrial IoT specifically as the parent mentioned experience with that.
zyxley 10y ago
Motorized blinds should have a simple and incredibly useful killer feature for literally anyone living in a city: the blinds automatically close when you go to bed, and automatically open a little while before your alarm clock goes off. The fact that getting something this simple this set up takes technical chops and a ton of cash is a massive failure on the part of the companies making these devices.
CaptSpify 10y ago
> The consumer doesn't want it? Is that true though? Isn't the massive influx of cash into these proving the opposite? I see this sentiment a lot. "I don't see the point of smart things, so nobody must want them!" But that just isn't true. There's a lot of benefits to be had, and a lot of people want them.

meddlepal 10y ago

Mostly the latter two. So Industrial IoT is usually Enterprise sales and price isn't (often) an issue and there is plenty of competition in theory but vendor lock-in prevents easy interop. The big backend software platform vendors often get exclusive partnerships with the hardware vendors which then means if you want to use the device with a different backend you're in for a world of pain. You also have some vendors with massive NIH syndrome so rather than investing in MQTT or COAP they go off and design a new protocol that nobody speaks. At the same time the software is usually just a mix of bad to meh. A lot of companies have retrofitted themselves as SaaS Industrial IoT outfits after having spent 15 years in industrial automation doing something that sort of looks like IoT but isn't. You cannot just pivot so easily - tech, culture, operations etc. I've seen factory control plane agents (the stuff used to make a touch screens in factories that workers monitor to see stats or operate machines) get retrofitted into massive data collection tools that are completely arcane to modify or extend.