Last month's article gave a high level overview of IOT, the Internet of Things. While the definition of this term is nebulous and ill-defined, the term is still useful as it alludes to the confluence of the internet, inexpensive compute power, sensor development, and low cost memory. Many electronics companies have not only devoted areas on their websites to IOT, they are holding seminars to help develop their customers' awareness. Of course, it is all aimed, directly or indirectly, at their own potential business being advanced by IOT. While this may have the sound of being the latest buzzword and fad, there is a lot of real potential for business in the area, without the IOT buzzword.

In March, I had the opportunity to go to a full day seminar devoted to IOT, hosted by Arrow Electronics, Inc. To be clear, Arrow is by no means the only company with this orientation, it happens to be the one I just attended. There were five different conference rooms with three or four different presenters every hour. There was a keynote speaker early in the day and a series of presentations on stage at the end of the day. Several companies had booths where attendees could get into deeper conversations with each companies' technical representatives. There are many such events of this magnitude going on around the country, with several different sponsors and formats. IOT is getting a lot of attention from many different companies.

One idea worth noting is that to succeed in IOT, companies will likely need to partner with other companies to obtain the breath of technologies necessary to be successful. This was said by a presenter from a multi-billion dollar company that might have been expected to go it alone. Another interesting view is that the bulk of the real growth will be in retrofits to existing machinery. A fully functioning, massive, air conditioner on top of a building may become significantly more efficient, not by replacing it but by having better control of it. A module could be added that predicts the need for cooling based on weather, number of workers, etc. If it is known that a cold front will hit within the hour, why spend massive amounts of energy for cooling when a few degrees warmer is tolerable before the natural cooling hits. This new module is insignificant in cost, compared to the cost of purchase and installation of the large machinery. It is believed by some, that the biggest gains will be found in making existing machinery smarter.

It is worth looking at a wide range of companies' web sites to see what is being said and predicted. There are estimates that this technology, given its ubiquitous nature, will become a trillion dollar industry within ten years. Whether or not IOT is just a buzzword, the bringing together of many technologies is likely to increase significantly in the next few years.