5 ms·

But what is the actual benefit to the consumer? What is the user story here? "I want my washing machine connected to the Internet so that _________"? I can't

But what is the actual benefit to the consumer? What is the user story here? "I want my washing machine connected to the Internet so that _________"? I can't finish this sentence - I have literally no idea. As another commenter suggested, I expect the incumbent giants will add the IoT functionality to most mid-range consumer products anyway, whether anyone wants them to or not, and then it will be proclaimed a great success, while the consumer will be left utterly in the dark about why their fridge has a wifi symbol on it or what it can be used for. Perhaps it'll be less like 3D printers and more like 3D TV, which has apparently now quietly died a death (I tried it once on my TV, because I work in tech and felt some sort of weird obligation to - I'm sure many people never even tried those stupid 3D glasses that came with their TV).

ktta 10y ago
Automation/Notification 1. Your oven can cook the pizza in the oven, which will be ready by the time you are home. 2. Your coffee maker can check your location to see if you're in town or not and decide to make coffee. 3. Security cameras can upload video to cloud directly so you can see them from anywhere live. They can be motion activated to alert you so that you can check if it is a dog or a burglar. 4. A fridge which recently came out with a camera which you can check to see what you need to buy[1]. Can be triggered when your location is close to a grocery store. 5. Your smoke detector can send you a notification, turn off the internet connected thermostat and any other appliances. Can turn on the security camera inside so you can check if it's your family burning cookies or house burning down. 6. You washing machine can remind you when your load is done. Can send you reminders that you didn't do laundry for a while. 7. Roomba already does neat stuff that I don't need to explain here. As I said, the real benefit comes when they all work together. There are custom solutions, but if one can set up everything so that it can track your location/schedule to automate things, that would make for a great increase in quality of life. You won't keep forgetting food in the oven, let the heat bill run up too high, forget your clothes in the washer, and a nice coffee as soon as you wake up. This might seem insignificant, but I think it's similar to having a very smart housekeeper (although not as capable). Combined with all the data about you, like weight, heart rate, schedule, etc. intelligent systems can work pretty well. [1]: http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/family-hub-refrigerator/ http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/family-hub-refrigerator/
- flukus 10y ago
  1. How does the pizza get to the oven? 2. Lot's of issues, my presence does not determine my need for coffee. 4. Sounds great but in reality you won't be able to see things hidden behind other things or if a sauce bottle is full or empty. 7. What does roomba do that I need apart from a timer? From your list is seems like we'll have an internet of half working things that everyone turns off after a week because they're more trouble than they're worth.
  - ktta 10y ago
    They aren't perfect. I don't really know what I was thinking with the first one, but I'll just rephrase it to remotely controllable oven. You can read more about what Roomba can do here[1]. If it isn't for you that's fine. Not everyone needs to buy sauces all the time. Usually just a look suffices. The problems you talk about aren't against IoT but just the use case I specify here. They're very solvable and there are many more uses than I can talk about. I'm not a salesman for these products so I just said what came to mind. When any new technology first comes to market and tries to blow everyone's minds away, it often fails to make the entrance it anticipates because, in your words, "they're more trouble than they're worth". But all they need is some rethinking and time. When PDAs first came out, my dad scoffed at them and used a large notebook to write down notes. But today that's changed. I think that'll be the same with IoT. We're increasingly moving towards a more electronic home, and that's not stopping anytime soon. It just needs some time to reach proper attention just like phones did, and we'll have standards (hopefully) which can harness the power of connected devices in your home. As the other commented to GPs reply said, a great factor is energy saving too. Intelligent devices can figure out by themselves when to turn on and off, and that can do a lot of power savings. [1]:https://store.irobot.com/default/robot-vacuum-roomba/ https://store.irobot.com/default/robot-vacuum-roomba/
kem 10y ago
This is just an anecdote as a consumer, but our interest in it when we were looking in to it heavily stemmed from environmental control products, broadly defined. I'm not sure if I care about my fridge connecting to the internet, but I did care about the lights being off and not wasting energy, the thermostat being under our control when we were gone, controlling humidity and temp in different rooms, door locks, cameras, and so forth and so on. I suspect that as things like solar panels become more of a standard part of home heating & ac, people will become more concerned about regulating energy use, and so forth. And they won't want to micromanage, manually, they'll want it all networked, the components with each other, with whatever central sources are useful (e.g., the energy utility), and their phones and computers. The concerns we ran into were really fourfold: 1. Idiosyncratic proprietary standards and lock-in. We wanted to buy lightbulb A from company X without being wedded to them forever, and without worrying about whether or not it would be compatible with thermostat C from company Y. Everyone instead seemed to be trying to lock you into something. 2. Security. Everyone here seems to get why that's important. 3. Autonomy. We ran into problems with the following scenario: what if company Z goes under? What if there's a power outage and we need to control device D without connecting to an outside server? A disturbing number of companies seemed to just suggest you're SOL in those situations, which wasn't acceptable. 4. Throughput/bandwidth/resource use. A lot of these things consumed a surprising amount of energy and/or bandwidth. Maybe not the one lightbulb itself, but all of them together with the routers, etc. to control them. It all seems reasonable until you realize what's involved in having your whole damn house reliably communicating with you 24/7 by first going through some router and possibly outside server.

ktta 10y ago

Automation/Notification 1. Your oven can cook the pizza in the oven, which will be ready by the time you are home. 2. Your coffee maker can check your location to see if you're in town or not and decide to make coffee. 3. Security cameras can upload video to cloud directly so you can see them from anywhere live. They can be motion activated to alert you so that you can check if it is a dog or a burglar. 4. A fridge which recently came out with a camera which you can check to see what you need to buy[1]. Can be triggered when your location is close to a grocery store. 5. Your smoke detector can send you a notification, turn off the internet connected thermostat and any other appliances. Can turn on the security camera inside so you can check if it's your family burning cookies or house burning down. 6. You washing machine can remind you when your load is done. Can send you reminders that you didn't do laundry for a while. 7. Roomba already does neat stuff that I don't need to explain here. As I said, the real benefit comes when they all work together. There are custom solutions, but if one can set up everything so that it can track your location/schedule to automate things, that would make for a great increase in quality of life. You won't keep forgetting food in the oven, let the heat bill run up too high, forget your clothes in the washer, and a nice coffee as soon as you wake up. This might seem insignificant, but I think it's similar to having a very smart housekeeper (although not as capable). Combined with all the data about you, like weight, heart rate, schedule, etc. intelligent systems can work pretty well. [1]: http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/family-hub-refrigerator/ http://www.samsung.com/us/explore/family-hub-refrigerator/

flukus 10y ago
1. How does the pizza get to the oven? 2. Lot's of issues, my presence does not determine my need for coffee. 4. Sounds great but in reality you won't be able to see things hidden behind other things or if a sauce bottle is full or empty. 7. What does roomba do that I need apart from a timer? From your list is seems like we'll have an internet of half working things that everyone turns off after a week because they're more trouble than they're worth.
- ktta 10y ago
  They aren't perfect. I don't really know what I was thinking with the first one, but I'll just rephrase it to remotely controllable oven. You can read more about what Roomba can do here[1]. If it isn't for you that's fine. Not everyone needs to buy sauces all the time. Usually just a look suffices. The problems you talk about aren't against IoT but just the use case I specify here. They're very solvable and there are many more uses than I can talk about. I'm not a salesman for these products so I just said what came to mind. When any new technology first comes to market and tries to blow everyone's minds away, it often fails to make the entrance it anticipates because, in your words, "they're more trouble than they're worth". But all they need is some rethinking and time. When PDAs first came out, my dad scoffed at them and used a large notebook to write down notes. But today that's changed. I think that'll be the same with IoT. We're increasingly moving towards a more electronic home, and that's not stopping anytime soon. It just needs some time to reach proper attention just like phones did, and we'll have standards (hopefully) which can harness the power of connected devices in your home. As the other commented to GPs reply said, a great factor is energy saving too. Intelligent devices can figure out by themselves when to turn on and off, and that can do a lot of power savings. [1]:https://store.irobot.com/default/robot-vacuum-roomba/ https://store.irobot.com/default/robot-vacuum-roomba/

kem 10y ago

This is just an anecdote as a consumer, but our interest in it when we were looking in to it heavily stemmed from environmental control products, broadly defined. I'm not sure if I care about my fridge connecting to the internet, but I did care about the lights being off and not wasting energy, the thermostat being under our control when we were gone, controlling humidity and temp in different rooms, door locks, cameras, and so forth and so on. I suspect that as things like solar panels become more of a standard part of home heating & ac, people will become more concerned about regulating energy use, and so forth. And they won't want to micromanage, manually, they'll want it all networked, the components with each other, with whatever central sources are useful (e.g., the energy utility), and their phones and computers. The concerns we ran into were really fourfold: 1. Idiosyncratic proprietary standards and lock-in. We wanted to buy lightbulb A from company X without being wedded to them forever, and without worrying about whether or not it would be compatible with thermostat C from company Y. Everyone instead seemed to be trying to lock you into something. 2. Security. Everyone here seems to get why that's important. 3. Autonomy. We ran into problems with the following scenario: what if company Z goes under? What if there's a power outage and we need to control device D without connecting to an outside server? A disturbing number of companies seemed to just suggest you're SOL in those situations, which wasn't acceptable. 4. Throughput/bandwidth/resource use. A lot of these things consumed a surprising amount of energy and/or bandwidth. Maybe not the one lightbulb itself, but all of them together with the routers, etc. to control them. It all seems reasonable until you realize what's involved in having your whole damn house reliably communicating with you 24/7 by first going through some router and possibly outside server.