Creative Connectivity

NB-IOT. The Internet of Bikes and Labradors.

If you attended the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, you might have thought that the Internet of Things was mainly about bikes and labradors, as they were the mainstay of applications which were depicted on most IoT stands. The reason for that was a marketing push for Narrow Band IoT (NB-IOT) orchestrated by the GSM Association, who had picked up on two applications from early trials and was promoting them at every opportunity.

There’s probably a good market for tracking labradors, as in my experience they’re not the smartest breed in the canine world, but they’re definitely a lot smarter than anyone who believed the IoT message that the network operators were pushing out in Barcelona. According to companies like Vodafone, commercial trials were only four months away, with commercial services next year. But you need more than marketing to make something happen. So here’s my view of the real progress of NB-IOT.

Hearables at the Mobile World Congress

For most people these days, personal music means phones. Although our love for personal music started with Sony’s Walkman, it was transformed by Apple’s iPod, launching the iconic images of wires trailing from our ears. Since then, billions of users have moved to smartphones as the device of choice for personal music, increasingly using streaming services like Spotify. So the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is a useful touchstone to gauge how that industry is taking note of the way we listen to audio.

For much of the last decade what we put in or on our ears has changed little. Dr Dre voiced his frustration at the “sub-dollar earbuds” that most people use, as a prime reason for manufacturing his range of Beats headsets. But it’s only in the last year that we’ve seen the emergence of real changes. The first is a sudden growth in wireless headsets, thought to be linked to the rise in mobile video and the inconvenience of cables when holding a handset. The second is the shipment of the first hearables in the form of wireless earbuds, which fit into each ear. They started with two successful crowdfunded campaigns, one from Earin in Sweden, the other from Bragi in Munich with their Dash earbuds, adds the further refinement of health and fitness sensors. Both are now shipping, along with Doppler’s Here. In their wake, over twenty other hearable devices have been successfully funded and a growing number of established manufacturers are joining in. So I was fascinated to see what the industry would be showcasing in Barcelona.

Ericsson slashes cellular IoT device forecast by 20 billion

Back in 2010, Ericsson set the bar for much of the subsequent hype around the Internet of Things by making a very pubic prediction that by 2020 there would be 50 billion internet connected devices. Others have been more or less aggressive, suggesting “conservative” numbers of 20 billion, while some have stretched credulity with projections up to 1.5 trillion. The 50 billion isn’t just IoT, it covers everything from phones to smart TVs to tractors, but the biggest single element is what we now call the Internet of Things, with the original 50 billion prediction including around 20 billion cellular IoT connections.

Most analysts have supported the Ericsson line with an estimate somewhere between 30 and 50 billion. But just before Christmas, in their latest Mobility Report, Ericsson quietly changed their minds. They still kept the headline number of around 50 billion connected devices, but dropped the number of cellular connected IoT devices in 2020 from their previous estimate of 20 billion to just over 1 billion.

The important word here is cellular. This week, as the mobile community gathered in Barcelona for their annual jamboree, which is the Mobile World Congress, the industry was still full of expectation that they would own the Internet of Things, and more importantly, the revenue associated with it. Ericsson doesn’t want to spoil that hope with any blatant contradictions, but if you look more closely at the implication of their new numbers, the IoT aspirations of the networks look less than rosy, as their revenue projections begin to disappear into thin air.

UK Parliament calls for Evidence on Smart Metering Programme

As readers of my blog will know, I am concerned about the GB Smart Metering programme, not because of any issues with smart meters per se – they can be an important part of a smarter grid. My concern has always been that the GB programme will fail to deliver most of the potential benefits of smart metering, instead saddling consumers with the cost of a lot of obsolete technology.

Now it looks as if that message may be getting across. Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee has just started an evidence check and is requesting input from anyone with relevant views on the GB Smart Metering Programme. You have until midday on 28^th January and can submit comments on their website. It claims they will be “pre-moderated” and that “Your comment will not be treated as formal written evidence to the Committee.” I hope that’s just standard wording and not a devious attempt to dismiss evidence.

Some initial mistakes pushed the technology in the wrong direction. Instead of correcting them, DECC has applied more and more complex sticking plasters whilst denying the underlying issues, to the point where the programme is now:

The most complex system in the world
The most expensive system in the world
Based on technology which is heading to be obsolete by the early 2020s.

To justify its value, DECC has ignored evidence on consumer behaviour, relying instead on wishful thinking from academics and consultants. As more is learnt from other deployments around the world it is clear that the benefits have been vastly overstated. One utility – British Gas, almost certainly has enough data to provide a clear picture on long term benefits, but this has not been released, probably because it would torpedo the current impact assessment.

I believe it is the time for a thorough review to ensure that Britain gets the smart metering system it needs. If the current programme continues it will almost certainly overrun on cost. Parts of it will be obsolete by the time the deployment is complete and a new replacement programme will need to start by the end of 2020 if the meters are to continue operating, with all of the associated costs. It has all of the hallmarks of a major IT disaster, but one where the public will be more conscious than ever before of the true cost of a Government screw-up, because it will be clearly visible on their inflated energy bills.

The UK Government departments and Non-Departmental Government Bodies have widely different approaches to basing policy on evidence. At its best we have NICE – the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which is world recognised for its competence in using evidence to direct clinical and prescribing policy. However, at the shallow end of the evidence pool we find the desperate doggy paddling of DECC, whose mandarins still pursue the approach of policy leading evidence, i.e. they make up their minds about what they want to do, then manufacture the “evidence” to support the policy.

Is Hearing Loss the New Diabetes?

The twentieth century has seen many revolutions in the way we live our lives. One of the less discussed is that it has given us the mass ability to actively injure our health. Over the last fifty years, the miracles of modern science have turned the medical profession 180 degrees, sending maladies to the grave rather than its patients. To compensate, we’ve taken the opportunity to find highly successful ways of throwing that newly found health and longevity away. Throughout the twentieth century we have developed generational and lifestyle diseases on a massive scale as we live longer and indulge our addictions. From smoking and lung cancer, alcohol and cirrhosis, to fast food, obesity and type 2 diabetes, humanity has shown its unerring ability to put short term pleasure ahead of long term health. Each of these diseases impact society, not least because of the cost of supporting a population which is avidly collecting a growing range of self-inflicted, long term chronic conditions.

Another one, which we don’t talk about and generally don’t want to hear about is quietly joining the list of widespread chronic conditions – hearing loss.

The Battle for Mesh. Bluetooth vs Thread?

It’s a New Year, which means it’s time for the annual week of madness in Las Vegas which is the Consumer Electronics Show. For four days, the electronics industry comes together to tell consumers what they ought to be buying, whilst analysts and the media try to predict what will really be the hot product sector for the coming year.

Over the last few years, as PCs, tablets and phones have lost their wow factor, that’s proven to be a little more difficult than it used to be. In 2014, the consensus was that wearables would be the next big thing. They have definitely made strides beyond basic step counting, but are still smouldering rather than setting the world on fire. Instead, the innovation which caught the public imagination at CES in 2014 was the selfie stick.

In 2015, the smart money was on smart homes. But with a few exceptions, consumers felt the smart thing to do with their money was to buy more selfie sticks. This year, the pundits will probably predict that 2016 will be the year of the drone. My guess is that most consumers will still prefer to buy selfie sticks. Unless someone comes up with cheap drones that take selfies*.

Of course, like all good works of fiction, the CES show contains a number of interesting subplots, one of which will be the battle for mesh.