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Every new technology trend brings speculation and talk about a \u201ckiller app\u201d that will be the solution to all of our problems.<\/p>\nCada nueva tendencia tecnol\u00f3gica genera especulaci\u00f3n y habla de una ‘aplicaci\u00f3n asesina’ que ser\u00e1 la soluci\u00f3n a todos los problemas.<\/p>\n
Every new technology trend brings speculation and talk about a \u201ckiller app\u201d that will be the solution to all of our problems.<\/p>\n
Tech publications and blogs produce countless articles searching for the \u201ckiller app\u201d for the iPhone, the Cloud, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and of course, IoT. We\u2019ve also even seen the same hype for development processes. I can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve heard that Agile is that silver bullet. Or maybe it was Lean, or Kanban? Hard to keep track.<\/p>\n
But as a Product Manager, we can\u2019t keep chasing the next big thing all the time. It\u2019s true we need to understand where technology is going, but we need to be more pragmatic and realize there is no single \u201ckiller app\u201d for anything. Particularly for IoT.<\/p>\n
Is predictive maintenance the killer app for IoT?<\/strong><\/p>\n Predictive maintenance refers to the practice of\u00a0adding sensors to collect and analyze real-time data from industrial equipment to predict when it is likely to fail<\/a>.<\/p>\n I often talk to companies who want to get into IoT by offering predictive maintenance solutions. They are interested not because they\u2019ve spotted a customer need, but because they\u2019ve heard that predictive maintenance is where the money\u2019s at in IoT. In essence, somebody convinced them that predictive maintenance\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0the killer app for IoT.<\/p>\n It is true that predictive maintenance is getting a lot of traction with industrial companies, but that\u2019s because it addresses a tough problem that those particular companies already had. Not because predictive maintenance in itself is the solution to all problems.<\/p>\n My advice is this: Instead of looking for the killer app for IoT, companies should focus on understanding their customer\u2019s needs and evaluating how they can leverage the Internet of Things to solve those problems in a better, faster, or cheaper way.<\/p>\n In short, by understanding your customer\u2019s needs, you can design the\u00a0right<\/em>\u00a0killer app for that particular customer challenge.<\/p>\n If you stop considering IoT as a silver bullet and instead look at it as another tool in your portfolio, you can move past the hype and start working towards building real solutions.<\/p>\n Other innovative applications leveraging the Internet of Things<\/strong><\/p>\n To drive this point home, I\u2019d like to share a few real-world applications in use today. Notice that these products are not creating a new category of problems. Instead, they provide more efficient solutions to existing customer problems. These companies understood their customer\u2019s challenge and then leveraged IoT by asking the question, \u201cHow can I provide a better solution by acquiring and processing real-world signals from my customer\u2019s environments?\u201d<\/p>\n If you think about it, acquiring and processing real-world signals is one of the key attributes of IoT, so with that in mind, what innovative solution could you create for your customers?<\/p>\n 1. Reducing traffic congestion via smart parking<\/strong><\/p>\n As cities grow, so does their traffic congestion. And in many cities, a big contributor to this congestion is lack of parking spaces. Think about cities like San Francisco or New York. Drivers spend a lot of time circling around buildings trying to find a parking space. This in turn increases the traffic of already congested areas.<\/p>\n Some cities are looking at IoT to address this issue. By placing sensors on the street and on lighting posts, cities are able to track which parking spots are available and offer this information to companies who can monetize this data via apps or other types of services.<\/p>\n The parking information is also aggregated in the Cloud and allows cities to study traffic patterns to plan for better solutions in the future.<\/p>\n 2. Optimizing waste collection<\/strong><\/p>\n A company in the Netherlands<\/a>\u00a0is using the Internet of Things to track waste through its complete lifecycle. They place sensors in each of their bins to inform waste collectors when the bin is full and needs attention. This allows them to optimize collection routes and minimize the time and effort it takes to collect this waste.<\/p>\n Their collection trucks are also equipped with load sensors that determine, in real-time, the amount of waste that the main disposal center can expect as the trucks approach their destination.<\/p>\n 3. Increasing resiliency in the electric grid<\/strong><\/p>\n To increase resiliency in the electric grid, utilities around the world are leveraging IoT solutions to detect where power was interrupted so they can send a team to fix it right away. It used to take hours before utilities could determine the exact location of a fault. Today, they have this information in real-time, plus they can apply machine learning to anticipate the location where faults are likely to occur.<\/p>\n