“After four decades the smartphone comes of age,” proclaims Micheal Wolf in Forbes Magazine.
Wolf is right to a point but he misses the key reason why the smarthome, or the entire internet of things, has become accessible – the technology has simply become affordable.
It was possible to build a smarthome two decades ago, but it was fiendishly expensive and only a few rich people could afford the technology. Today that technology is cheap and easy to install.
This is the common factor with all aspect of the Internet of Things, connecting devices has been possible since before the internet became common but it was expensive and cumbersome so only the highest value equipment – such as oil rigs – was connected.
Now it’s inexpensive and simple to connect things, people are doing it more and that is why there’s a range of security and privacy issues which weren’t so pressing when it was only a few obscure industrial devices that were wired up.
We aren’t inventing the wheel with technologies like the internet of things or big data, they already existed – they are just more accessible and that’s what’s changing business.
