Internet of Philosophy: Consumer

Over the past two weeks I've been throwing words at the internet about how I think certain IoT systems should be implemented.  Specifically, Municipal (Government) and Enterprise (Business).  But really, all of that blah-blah-blah is just an introduction to this post: the Consumer (Home) side of it all.  After all, I'm not a government official nor am I employed in any way by a business.  However, I do own a home and I do consume.

The not-so-old adage that 'If you're not paying, you're the product' is what got me thinking about all of this in the first place.  Whether that saying is a complaint, a compliment or just a bunch of extruded male bovine waste is up for some debate.  However, is a decade that has seen the rise of Software-as-a-Service and attempts to add subscription models to everything (thanks Obama Amazon), it is worth taking a some time to analyze how it might apply to the SmartHome space.

Internet of Philosophy: Enterprise

Last week I started in on a series of articles around three implementations of the Internet of Things: Municipal, Enterprise and Consumer.  I covered off on the Municipal side of things within that opening article and this week I want to dive into what Enterprise or Commercial IoT is all about.

Enterprise Internet of Things

The Basics

When the government is installing an IoT system, they are doing it under the auspices of better serving their constituency.  Business installations are different.  They are all about maximizing return, whether that is for the business owners or for the shareholders.  While there is certainly a cost saving side to governmental IoT, that's all that there is for businesses.  If it won't increase profits, why do it?

Profits, then: the difference between expenditures and earnings.  IoT can help the businesses increase profits in two ways: lower costs per unit produced and lower liability.

Internet of Philosophy: Municipal

Intro to a Three Parter

Today, I'm going to start a three piece run on three different areas/levels/implementation spaces for the Internet of Things: Municipal, Commercial/Industrial, and Consumer.  For each, I plan on discussing the basics, pros and cons, and a potential guiding philosophy (hence the title) that may help those that build systems within each of these spaces.

I'm doing this because the Internet of Things is too all-encompassing a term.  Too often I read articles that appear to be about smart homes but are really about enterprise implementations.  As I filter my IoT reading for smart homes, it got me wondering how many articles with enterprise or government sounding titles were really about consumer level IoT.  There are no clear cut boundaries and, in the long term, there should not be as everything gets integrated.  But for the nonce (TIL of brit-slang nonce), these systems aren't connected or really working together in any way.

This separation is due mostly to funding.  Is the taxpayer, the stock holders or the private citizen paying for it?  Occasionally, it's all three as is the case with the slow, grinding move towards a smart power grid.  Usually, though, we pay for IoT systems as a member of only one of those groups.