How the Internet of Things will transform life as we know it
THE Internet of Things is not just a buzz phrase for Reinhard Clemens, CEO of German IT consulting giant T-Systems, who paid a quiet visit to South Africa last week. He says it is integral to where his business will generate revenue in the future.
“You will see that everything that is unconnected today will be connected in future, and you will be collecting tons of data. As a result, you will move from product sales to selling services.”
As he talks, he waves about a small white square. This is the Kinexon ONE and, within its sleek casing, it conceals a location and motion sensor that tracks the 3D position and orientation of people and objects.
“A small sensor like this can monitor temperature, vibration, and movement. Stick it to the door of an elevator, and it sends you all the details you need on how the elevator is functioning. Installation is cheap, and once the price of a unit comes down, it will become a mass-market product. Everything will connect with everything.”
The consequences will be farreaching, he says.
“Sensors in tyres will dictate new pricing models for big fleets, where you no longer buy the tyres, but pay per kilometre driven. Then you get a lot of efficiency on predictive maintenance.
“Imagine what it means for healthcare. For example, in Israel, a little device connected to the cloud makes a spectral scan of goods. You put it on an apple. It first tells you it’s an apple, but then you get everything: sugar content, all the ingredients, without touching the apple. If you are diabetic, you get an instant overview of what you’re eating.
“If you buy a mango, you touch the device on it and you can see whether it’s ripe or not. All these things are popping up on sensors and it creates an entire ecosystem in the cloud. By going digital, you can run a totally new kind of business.”
The Kinexon ONE is aimed at vertical industries rather than consumers. Implementation has included manufacturing, healthcare monitoring, retailcart tracking, and athlete monitoring. In manufacturing alone, the sensors address critical processes such as parts matching, monitoring activity, process automation and quality management.
“The biggest problem for customers is that no one yet understands the technology,” says Clemens. “Sensor companies are popping up like mushrooms; everyone has good ideas — but, if you install a company’s sensors in three million elevators in China, and the company disappears, you’re in trouble.”
That’s not just a theoretical threat. When AT&T announced it would “sunset” its 2G cellphone network due to broadband demand requiring 3G and 4G networks, it sparked panic in the automotive industry. It affects cars as diverse as the Nissan Leaf, which uses 2G to deliver telematic information, and those using the BMW Assist service in the US, along with any vehicle using older tracking devices. Widespread recalls of numerous categories of products may become commonplace once the Internet of Things becomes a standard ingredient.
“That is why I’m changing the way we sell products — I’m no longer selling the sensors, or connectivity, or cloud solutions, in separate blocks,” says Clemens. “I’m selling a service which says here’s an interface into the cloud environment, and you can have the same ability in the cloud from South Africa as you have from Germany.”
Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee.