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Where Is The Internet of Things Headed?

We Look at Gartner's 2020 Hype Cycle Trends to Forecast IoT Developments

If you look back at trends reports from five years ago, how many would have accurately predicted today’s trends? It seems as though no one wants to reflect on how far we have come and instead looks to get excited about the future, which is what we plan on doing in today’s article. Every year, Gartner devise a report on new and upcoming trends in their Hype Cycle. There is indeed plenty to get pumped about, especially here at Davra, because a lot of what’s covered in the report is directly related to IoT applications.

As we look at the Hype Cycle report trends, we’ll be making our own IoT predictions along the way. And don’t you worry, there are plenty of robots, and the everpresent AI mentions scattered throughout. Would it even be a tech and IoT report if there wasn’t an algorithmic sprinkling in the trend mix?!

Trend #1 Composite Architecture

Like a lot of tech trends, the name doesn’t exactly spell out what its use. So let us break it down. A composable enterprise is not fixed to a business model or multiple legacy systems, or hierarchical command chains. Instead, cloud-based data management, open APIs, mobile, social media encompass these models and envelop all things IoT. Think of any company that has successfully pivoted their business models during COVID-19. However, we can’t quite see the companies that are genuinely succeeding because it is too soon. It is still quite clear who’s managing their employees and processes well due to high adaptability.

Gartner states that to become a flexible enterprise, you must meet these core principles across your organization: modularity, efficiency, continuous improvement, and adaptive innovation. IoT will play a big part in the hybrid architecture due to taking in sheer volumes of data that assesses your organization’s moving parts. Early IoT adopters will be able to take the information they’ve gathered over the years to become a nuanced and highly adaptable company.

Trend #2 Formative AI

This type of artificial intelligence dynamically adapts over time to generate its kind of model to solve problems. This AI section can be broken down into generative design, AI-assisted software development, and generative adversarial networks. Its basic premise is that it can not only take in information to solve problems but also create new instances.

How would this tie in with IoT? If you were to use formative AI within an IoT system, you could receive interactive feedback from the software, which would enable companies to create better software and user interfaces.

This can be used by web developers and UX/UI designers, where they input their requirements, and the machine will develop an interface based on their needs and previous interactions. Devices don’t hold any preconceptions, so they could be incredibly useful in design, and indeed the creation of system processes when asked to do so.

Trend #3 Digital Me

We discussed the many benefits of Smart PPE in a previous article. Still, Gartner is taking this a step further by declaring that workplace safety and ergonomics can be increased through exoskeletons. These are essentially robotics or “skeletons” that you wear on top of your clothes. The idea here is to develop digital versions of these robotics to trial out how they can be worn in the workplace setting. The aim is to aid workers in their day-to-day work, in factories or hazardous conditions, because of the amount of stress their body is under due to heavy lifting or vibrations.

The digitised version of this model enables businesses to simulate the exoskeleton and its wearer and tweaks to the live performance for a fraction of the development cost. These exoskeletons could be connected by sensors to the IoT platform in the long-run, improving work processes and safety tracking.

We might be a long way from asking the machine to simply ‘do the work for us’ or constantly shifting business paradigms, but there are shifts in how these machines can aid our thinking and creativity. In manufacturing, workplace accidents occur far too often. Suppose we can connect our systems to ensure worker safety, while on the other hand, the machine tells us that the accident is going to happen even before it does. In that case, we should be embracing and moving with these technologies.

IoT platforms can take on these new advances while overriding many organisations’ current challenges because of their scalability and interoperability. If you would like to know how Davra tackles these issues, please contact us today.