Since then, the numbers have been scaled down somewhat, but industry watchers still expect billions of devices to be connected to the internet in the next few years.
The IoT was the central focus of last week’s Future of Wireless conference, organised by Cambridge Wireless. One of the keynote speakers told the conference that the industry was ‘confusing need with demand’. “People don’t care about smart homes and smart cities; they care about better healthcare and less congestion,” he said. Backing up this contention, conference chair Simon Fletcher added the industry needed to identify where the IoT could make a ‘real difference, rather than just a technology push’.
The IoT is currently on the peak of inflated expectations in Gartner’s Hype Cycle, poised to slip into the trough of disillusionment. When you hear people advising the industry to focus on need, rather than ‘throwing technology out there’, you can understand why.
