The real barrier to true IoT
The industry is excited about the IoT space because all of a sudden ubiquitous connectivity and near infinite processing power and storage in the cloud has opened up the possibility of creating new services which were impossible before. The reality though is for IoT to be successful the edge devices have to do a lot more than what they do today in terms of processing.
General trend in the "things" side is to reduce power consumption while increasing processing power and "connect" the "thing". This strategy can only go so far. At some point the only way to reduce power will be to reduce processing which goes against the premise of the edge device doing more.
The solution in my opinion will come from energy harvesting by the edge devices as well as wireless/wired delivery of power to the "things". When that happens the fundamental constraint will be removed. Embedded systems developers and semiconductor companies should perhaps start to spend more resources innovating on the energy delivery to the processors compared to reducing power consumption/power management.
Experienced Business Executive, IoT, ICT, SaaS, MFS, Telecom, Semiconductor, Wireless, Visionary Entrepreneur / Leader
9 年Totally agree with Robert assessment of the issues slowing the deployment of IoT in a large scale. Beside the power issue I also worry much about the security aspects of the IoT devices, making them a target for mass cyber attack to home gadgets such as:-the fridge, stove etc.. Imagine IoT device Receiving command from hackers, ? From business development perspespective IoT security is another challenge facing the industry. Endale Mitiku
Avnet FAE for NXP MCUs Western USA
9 年Power has definitely become "the other challenge" in direct competition with performance. Energy harvesting will become more and more important. We already have the option to provide very low average power by using concepts of performance on demand. If the hardware provides the means to keep the system in a ultra low-power mode for >99% of the time, a very short burst in performance and power is often tolerable and provides enough battery life. The short burst can deliver lots and lots of executed code IF the MCU is fast (> 100 MHz) Usually these MCUs are build in a very advanced process. The very long ultra low-power time can be in the nAs IF the MCU uses a low power process. If a company successfully combines ultra low-power standby with high performance bursts in a cost effective process, buy their shares! Cheers, Robert
Chief Technologist (Texas Instruments Sitara MPU Apps), Semiconductor Hardware Lead, driving strategy and innovation across multiple technical domains
9 年Interesting take. Maintaining true connectivity and mobility while providing energy will be the challenge.