IoT has been around for over 30 years. Recently however, we have begun to see new applications for this technology, which we unpacked with Shaun Stewart, the VP of Product at Infogrid, on Episode 11 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast. He talked us through his decade of experience in the area and shared his insights on the future application of IoT technology. Here’s what he said on the topic:

What’s your take on the current state of the IoT industry? 

In IoT broadly, there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening. Every industry goes through the initial hype cycle, and then things get oversold and people get disappointed. When the technology starts maturing, that’s when you see the most promise. That’s where we are now. 10 years ago there was a lot of promise in this industry, but not a lot of delivery. There were a lot of great ideas that are only just now being realised as the technology stacks mature alongside industry standards. 

As someone who’s been in the industry for a long time, I’ve been through a whole process and evolution with IoT. Now the industry feels a lot more mature than it did when I first started to get into it. There are more agreed upon standards and more mature tech stacks. Everyone’s so much more mature in the industry, they can move faster and innovate quicker. People understand the use cases a lot more. Overall, I think where we’re at today is really exciting. And we’re finally starting to realise our goals in a scalable way. 

We’re on the cusp of IoT crossing over into other industries and niches within the industry, such as process engineering, major asset protection and management etc. There’s a huge range of applications that we’re just on the cusp of, with IoT now becoming much more widespread.

Where would you say the biggest use cases for IoT are?

IoT can be applied to any interaction between the physical and digital world. Think smart cities, smart buildings, smart infrastructure… Here in New York City there’s been a lot of incremental gains over the years in our transportation infrastructure. Bringing IoT into our transportation infrastructure and making that data available will make it easier to see where a bus is, where a train is, where the metro is. IoT will improve accuracy within those systems. We’re going to see an improvement in infrastructure that’s not necessarily connected but it is smart. That’s an area where – particularly in the urban landscape – you’re going to continue to see new applications for IoT in terms of making devices smart, and then creating an urban mesh network of all these devices. 

To learn more about the applications of IoT technology, tune into Episode 11 of The Connectivity Matters Podcast. 

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