Five key trends in the development of the Internet of things in 2018

The past 2017 was another important year for the Internet of Things (IoT). Consumers still bought all the new connected devices, and as a result, one of the most popular New Year's gifts in many countries was virtual digital assistants with speech recognition. In addition, last year the first official launch of Narrow Band IoT services and products (NB-IoT) took place, and finally, according to statistics, today there are more IoT devices in the world than smartphones or PCs.

What does the new 2018 bring with it for the Internet of things? We discover five major trends that we believe will determine the coming year.



1. Even more connected devices and even more connectivity

In 2017, we observed an increase in the number of various devices and how to connect them, and this trend will continue in 2018. In particular, we will see further development of networks based on Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), such as NB-IoT, Sigfox and LoRaWAN. These technologies allow you to increase the battery life of devices that need to work without recharging up to several years, and at the same time provide a reliable connection over long distances.

We expect that the widespread introduction of such devices will lead to real social changes - for example, it will improve environmental monitoring to solve the problem of global climate change. The development of home automation services will make our life noticeably more convenient and easier. In addition, the era of smart manufacturing is coming. Given the whole wave of pilot projects and a number of pilot launches in 2017, we expect that in the coming year we will see a number of important undertakings in this direction. According to IDC forecasts , in 2018 alone, $ 189 billion will be spent on smart manufacturing projects.

More and more companies will start their own projects for the Internet of things, and they will need recommendations on connecting, storing data, remote monitoring, etc.

2. The development of peripheral computing with the possibility of real-time monitoring

With the increasing number of IoT projects, especially in the industrial field, where devices can be installed on geographically separated objects, at a considerable distance from each other, we will see more active use of data in real time on the periphery (i.e. on the connected devices themselves). In addition to reducing the cost of data transfer and storage, this approach will allow you to instantly analyze data, providing the opportunity for making more operational and more informed decisions.

According to IDC's forecast, by 2019, 40% of all data created by the Internet of Things will be stored and analyzed on the network periphery.

3. The development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning

technologies We will see the further development of machine learning technologies that will help make devices for the Internet of things even more effective, and move from a rule-based approach to a more serious, preventative approach. In particular, devices will be able to more effectively identify potential attacks before these attacks begin to cause damage.

Providers of IoT services and devices will be able to offer new matching services, which will be based on an in-depth analysis of the specifics of user tasks - the IoT device will be able to independently study how end users interact with a service or product. In large-scale deployments, when it comes to hundreds or thousands of IoT devices, artificial intelligence technologies will play a special role - without them, uniting devices on a network and collecting data will be very difficult.

Today we see active discussions about the fact that artificial intelligence will crowd out people in the workplace, but we believe that there really are not many reasons for these fears. Technologies will carry out those tasks for which artificial intelligence is “imprisoned”, allowing people to focus on fundamentally new, more creative tasks.

4. The expansion of the regulatory framework, the emergence of new security standards.

The need for more developed and reliable security technologies for the Internet of things will grow. We will witness more and more attacks, as a result of which we will more often discuss security issues for the Internet of things, as well as the potential damage from such attacks. According to our last year’s survey, most organizations and consumers consider it necessary to create a new regulatory framework regarding the security of the Internet of things, while they would like the government to participate in the formation of these standards.

As companies work to improve the security of their services and products, the practice of creating partnerships with external experts in the field of the Internet of Things will become more common. This implies working with white hackers, experts on the security of the Internet of things, as well as instituting premiums for detected vulnerabilities, which will test the existing infrastructure, identify possible vulnerabilities and achieve the necessary improvements.

5. Development of comprehensive, universal platforms for the Internet of things

Particularly in demand among manufacturers will be platforms for the Internet of Things, which would immediately provide the full range of necessary technologies. And the best here will be such platforms that are able to satisfy all the needs of the manufacturer or service provider - including in terms of organizing the connection, supporting all connection protocols, ensuring security, scalability, remote monitoring, secure storage capabilities, and which would ensure API support for the largest cloud service providers (AWS, IBM, Microsoft, etc.).

These competitive platforms for the Internet of Things will enable IoT service providers to develop their products even faster and easier, while providing the right level of security.

Of course, before the end of the year we will see other important events and unexpected surprises, but whatever they are, we will no doubt have another exciting year.

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