What Will IoT 2.0 Look Like?

What Will IoT 2.0 Look Like?

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When founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, coined the phrase “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he had in mind a vision of the future marked by massive technological breakthroughs. Robotics, AI, extended reality, nanotech, decentralized decision-making and autonomous machines would fast become the buzzwords of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0, and the pursuit of greater efficiency, automation and autonomy at scale, popularized a previously little-known architectural model called Internet of Things, or IoT. Tied to IoT is the plethora of devices connecting to the internet, currently estimated to reach a trillion by 2025, according to SoftBank Group. As capabilities evolve and new thinking occurs in IoT, we will arrive at IoT 2.0.

'IoT 2.0 will usher in the evolutionary transition from custom-built systems to highly scalable and widely applicable product ecosystems.' - EDJXClick To Tweet

What Is the IoT Architecture Framework?

There are different ways to describe the IoT architecture framework, but I like to break it into three logical steps:

1. Sensor

2. Processor

3. Actuator

The IoT framework begins with sensors and devices such as radar, lidar, cameras, and weather or thermal instruments that each produce raw data.

The processor element has been the subject of industry fervor in recent years. This is also referred to as edge computing. Computing power needs to be as close as possible to the things generating the data to satisfy ultra-low latency requirements and to save cost on data backhaul and needless storage. Software and related algorithms then process this data to create actionable information. Algorithms infer a present state and yield a decision or course of action.

Finally, that decision set is used by the actuator in the framework. The actuator could be a machine or the thing taking the prescribed action, such as braking a car that is about to collide with an object, or powering down a factory machine that is overheating.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, not exactly.

IoT 1.0 & the Early Years of IoT

The first years of IoT exploration can best be described as an extended experiment. It is a period that I call IoT 1.0 because versioning presumes a natural course of improvement. Indeed, there will be an IoT 2.0. IoT 1.0 is characterized by customized point solutions, and a fatally fragmented vendor ecosystem. Everybody, it seems, is reinventing the same wheels. It’s not surprising that early surveys of IoT 1.0 done by companies such as Cisco and Microsoft revealed that a staggering percentage–nearly 75 percent–of enterprise IoT projects failed to progress beyond the experimental stage.

The cost and complexity of IoT 1.0 isn’t a failure as much as it is a natural course of technology evolution. IoT 1.0 is merely the genesis stage of a massive technology paradigm. As modern industrial strategist, Simon Wardley, once put it, “every activity, practice, data type, etc., starts in the Genesis stage [and] things evolve through vendors competing to improve the product (supply-side evolution) and through the market adapting to take better advantage of the thing (demand-side evolution).”

The “Rhyming” Nature of IoT 1.0 and IoT 2.0

“History never repeats itself, but it does rhyme,” said Mark Twain. This quote applies to technology today. The rhyming of history we see is between today’s IoT and the client-server world of 1980s computing. In the client-server era, every enterprise environment was an island, scale was difficult to achieve, and commonality of implementation was complicated and cumbersome. Businesses had to hope they had a decent IT department to get the most out of their computing investment. These challenges should resonate with anyone implementing IoT today.

The shift from enterprise IT to IaaS and then cloud led to a jump in ROI on computing spend because of economies of scale, common platforms, and a dramatic reduction in in-house maintenance. Things got less complicated and less expensive, all abated by vendors realizing that the future of commercial business would be driven by the web services developer, not some archaic central IT manager or even the CIO.

The green shoots of this pattern are emerging in IoT. As capabilities evolve and new thinking occurs, we’ll arrive at IoT 2.0. The IoT developer is today’s version of what the web services developer was to the pioneers of cloud computing. IoT 2.0 will place the IoT developer at the center of decision-making.

Are We Ready for IoT 2.0?

Here is the big newsflash: Neither the technologies nor business models of today’s hyperscale cloud providers are designed for the world of IoT 2.0.

IoT 2.0 will be underpinned by an OS for the edge, a common platform designed to deliver computing power where it needs to be automatically to accommodate the imperatives of IoT. This OS will provide distributed computing that embraces a Schwabian decentralized framework driven by protocols rather than products. It will be designed for low latency and deployment models that will break developers free from the iron shackles of legacy compilers and orchestrators that truly have no place at the edge. Perhaps most importantly, a common OS for the edge would embrace multi-tenancy as a business prerogative, thereby expanding the perimeter of the edge economy.

The consequence of IoT 2.0 means content, code, and data delivery will be achieved at dramatically lower costs. But it also means a changing economic model for the supply chain. A decentralized value chain means everyone from data center owners, tower companies, network providers, and hardware OEMs can generate a scalable return on edge.

The Future of Industry Growth & IoT 2.0

In the big picture, IoT 2.0 will usher in the evolutionary transition from custom-built systems to highly scalable and widely applicable product ecosystems. It will mark the inflection point, as Wardley would describe, to the hockey stick of industry growth and prosperity. Industry 4.0 is about to come of age.

The Benefits of IoT for Human Resources

Traditionally, human resources personnel closely monitor employees through survey feedback or integrated monitoring software. However, these methods don’t provide accurate data and objective assessments, leading to decreased employee engagement and miscommunication. To excel in this department, HR managers need a way to track employee performance, behavior, and comfort level without these consequences. That’s where the Internet of Things (IoT) comes into play. It can provide precise monitoring results, making HR tasks much more efficient. Let’s take a look at how professionals can use IoT technology to improve human resources.

'IoT makes it possible for organizations to make actionable decisions. It allows HR to connect to the workforce, address issues, and achieve goals more efficiently.' -Devin PartidaClick To Tweet

Benefits of IoT for HR

#1: Employee Wellbeing

Employee health is a top concern for employers. They want to be sure their workers can produce results without compromising their health. Otherwise, an employee with health issues leads to more sick days, decreased productivity, and less revenue. This is where HR teams can closely monitor employees’ health with connected devices. For instance, wearables provide data such as walking distance, steps, vitals, and food intake.?

The department can pinpoint any health concerns and detect hazardous situations based on data. For example, some wearables can identify specific locations of infected employees and develop a map of safety and pre-authorized zones. This technology can make the workplace safer and improve efficiency.

#2: Better Recruitments

Recruitment is one of the most vital processes of human resources. IoT now makes it possible for human resources to track employee responses during recruitment. Using this technology, human resources can make the recruitment process more efficient.

For example, recruiters can create virtual experiences for interviews. By integrating augmented reality into the setting, HR can enhance candidate evaluation and track responses through wearable technology. On the other hand, artificial intelligence-enabled IoT can enhance the selection process by eliminating bias and increasing employee diversity.

#3: Enhanced Employee Productivity

IoT has eye-tracking technology to detect eye movement using sensors. By tracking these motions, human resources personnel can identify factors such as specific work hours or distractions from background noises.

This information helps HR to gather information on how productive the employees are at work, especially for remote and hybrid workers. In turn, they can help employees improve time and stress management via sessions to ensure they’re more active during work hours.

Additionally, IoT sensor technology can identify the most productive employees, enabling human resources to provide career assistance. For example, a beacon in a keyboard can detect key presses per minute. Suppose HR notices an employee is more efficient at typing than handling calls. In that case, HR could transfer that worker to the back office to enhance productivity.

#4: Workplace Comfort

Research shows that two-thirds of businesses report their employees feeling overwhelmed, which leads to mental and physical ailments. The Internet of Things — with the help of AI — has the potential to detect symptoms of depression and other mental illnesses within employees.

For instance, cameras can click on images of employees at certain times of the day — extracting behavioral patterns and comparing them to pictures of those who suffer from depression. In this way, the technology can help determine whether an employee is suffering from mental health issues. If the findings of IoT indicate an employee is depressed, it can flag HR personnel and allow them to organize counseling sessions. As a result, employees can decrease burnout and feel more comfortable at work.

IoT & the Future of HR

The Internet of Things makes it possible for organizations to make actionable decisions. It allows HR to connect to the workforce, address issues, and achieve goals more efficiently. With this innovativeness, IoT will enhance human resources’ response time and agility — helping organizations stay ahead of the curve while attracting potential recruits.

Smart Retail Floor Management

Smart retail floor management uses IoT-enabled sensors to track employees and monitor customer service performance in brick-and-mortar retail stores.

What is IoT-Enabled Smart Retail Floor Management?

Smart retail floor management uses IoT-enabled sensors, like occupancy sensors and cameras, to track the location and performance of retail crew in order to identify inefficiencies, improve overall staff performance, increase retail floor efficiency and ensure a frictionless experience for customers in brick-and-mortar stores.

The increasing popularity of eCommerce stores has changed the expectations of consumers in brick-and-mortar retail stores. As eCommerce stores offer more customized experiences, consumers bring those heightened expectations back to retail spaces.

Value Proposition

73 percent of consumers say that good customer experiences encourage them to spend more money than they intended to and 57 percent said that they would be willing to spend more on a product or service if they knew it would come with excellent customer experience. Although brick-and-mortar retail stores don’t have access to personalized customer data, like browsing history and previous engagement with ads, they’re still on the hook to deliver highly efficient, positive experiences to consumers. Smart retail floor management solutions let retail stores

How it Works

Smart retail floor management solutions allow companies to monitor the performance of customer service staff including the amount of time it takes for a customer inquiry to be resolved, traffic patterns in the store, and insights to adjust schedules and ensure that there is always enough staff on-site.

Key Benefits of Smart Retail Floor Management

? Automate collection and reports on staff performance.

? Receive automatic updates to optimize staff schedules.

? Enable customers to call for help without having to find and flag down an employee from somewhere else in the store.

? IoT Security Challenges in Retail

? Before meshing new IoT elements into your network, you should consider how it fits as part of a comprehensive security strategy. Remember that you can’t tackle IoT security on a device-by-device basis.

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Internet of Things (IoT) technology obviously presents a lot of opportunities for retailers. In fact, the emergence of IoT makes it possible to personalize the customer experience and optimize your supply chain. There are new, innovative applications for these technologies every day.

Take security as an example. Retail operations can use IoT technology to help reduce shrink and other forms of loss. However, with new systems come new vulnerabilities and IoT tools are certainly no exception.

The Stance on IoT Retail Security

When recently asked about their top tech concerns, IoT executives at the Internet of Things World conference put security towards the top of their list.

Implementation and security are both reasonable concerns as the two often overlap. Any time you adopt new technologies, security should always be one of your primary concerns. After all, criminals make it their business to find ways to manipulate vulnerabilities before anyone finds a way to stop them. Thus, if you’re not proactive about threats within your network, there’s a very good chance bad actors will find them before you do.

A recent report by SonicWall reveals that organizations detected roughly 32.7 million IoT attacks in 2018. That’s a shocking 217.5 percent increase in just one year. Even a single attack could result in millions of dollars in damage to your business. The margin of error is narrow and the potential losses are huge.

Even if security is a primary concern, though, that doesn’t mean everyone takes the necessary action to address it. Despite the risk, only one in every three IoT World attendees surveyed said they made data encryption a default practice. This doesn’t bode well for the state of IoT security.

Before meshing new #IoT elements into your network, you should consider how it fits as part of a comprehensive security strategy. Remember that you can’t tackle IoT security on a device-by-device basis.Click To Tweet

How Merchants Approach Security Risks

We see progress in some areas of IoT threat assessment and response. For example, global IoT spending showcases an impressive, double-digit annual growth rate with total spend projected to approach the $1 trillion mark by 2021, a 48 percent increase over the amount spent in 2017. At the same time, IoT security spending is projected to increase tenfold between 2017 and 2021, reaching the $1 billion mark for the first time. That’s a good sign, but it’s not enough on its own.

The fact that we spend more doesn’t mean we’re doing everything necessary to address vulnerabilities. We need to spread awareness of IoT security best practices for businesses. Otherwise, the incredible opportunities for IoT technology could devolve into sources of loss rather than reward.

First, it’s smart to deploy IoT devices on a dedicated network. This helps insulate the data transmitted on that network from the risk of external attack. The IoT executive survey shows just 45 percent of respondents presently take this critical step.

Next, you can’t leave security to one or two individuals; it needs to be a company-wide push. All employees need to be trained on the unique demands of IoT security protocols. Nearly two-thirds of executives plan to introduce additional training for technical roles and a near-equal number plan to hire more staff. Yet, this is another area where we can stand to see improvement, as just 46 percent of survey respondents currently have internal IoT-focused training systems in place for their workforce.

The Future of IoT Security

There are quite a few interesting experiments going on right now involving the technology. For example, the University of Nevada is exploring the idea of implementing IoT tools alongside another fast-developing new tool, blockchain technology, to assist with data integrity in self-driving cars. While that’s a far cry from retail loss prevention, one can see certain avenues through which it can adapt.

From the merchant perspective, blockchain technology has incredibly useful applications for many of the same areas as IoT technology. By combining IoT and blockchain tools as part of a broader strategy, businesses can benefit from faster recall and more reliable data.

One way to integrate these tools is to fix products with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Retailers can effectively identify products, keep track of where goods are located and rapidly identify theft and other forms of fraud. Storing this data in a blockchain system makes it possible to conduct real-time audits and respond quickly. It’s no wonder that the blockchain-enabled IoT market is forecasted to surpass $1.5 billion by 2024.

IoT’s Future Depends on Present Security Protocols

It can be difficult to provide software that protects each device on an individual basis. When all devices are integrated into a single, unified system, a vulnerability somewhere becomes a vulnerability everywhere. Before meshing new IoT elements into your network, you should consider how it fits as part of a comprehensive security strategy. Remember that you can’t tackle IoT security on a device-by-device basis.