IoT set to rocket
There are a lot of impressive forecasts for the adoption of industrial IoT in the next 5 years. For example, Omdia research estimates the total population of satellite-enabled IoT connections will grow from 2.7 million connections in 2019 to 10.3 million in 2025. But, if history tells us anything, those estimates will prove conservative. As Bill Gates said “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."
In 2021 we are witnessing the convergence of two huge trends. Either of these would bring about a big shift in the adoption curve for IoT, but combined they will be game changing for the industry.
The first is the monster improvement in satellite data costs thanks to the arrival of innovative low orbit satellite providers like Swarm (which provide the satellite data to our Nexus gateway product). SWARMs compact satellites, launched in groups of 36, are quickly spreading out to provide reliable, low cost IoT coverage across the earth. By October they will offer one minute latency - which is perfect for many IoT applications.
The second trend is the exponential innovation taking hold in the world of IoT sensors.
Five years ago, a typical sensor unit might be the size of your tea cup - with its own rugged housing and on board power source. But now, thanks to advances in materials and manufacturing, these machines are being compressed down to a chip that costs a fraction of the original unit and barely covers your fingertip. For just a few cents, sensors can now be integrated into the electronics of almost any machine.
As the article below shows, companies like Bosch are even combining multiple high value environmental sensors onto a single chip about the size of a pea.
Bosch Sensortec has announced the BME688, the first air quality MEMS sensor that combines gas, humidity, temperature and barometric pressure sensing with innovative artificial intelligence (AI) capability; essentially creating the world’s smallest four-in-one air quality measurement solution.
The economics of shrinking multiple fully functional sensors down to microprocessor size are revolutionary for industrial IoT. Combine these new micro sensors with the huge reductions in satellite data costs and it’s likely most forecasts about the adoption of IoT devices will massively undershoot reality.
https://smartbuildingsmagazine.com/news/bosch-launches-new-sensor