January 31, 2014
What a wonderful idea: a cute teddy bear full of sensors to track vital signs of the kid who is playing with it. Vulnerable babies will be measured and monitored without being bothered. And even better, the data collected will be more accurate than when they are bothered by a nurse or doctor. As well as taking measurements, nurses and parents can also communicate with their children remotely by playing songs and recording bedtime stories through the toy.
Two master students from Zagreb, Croatia, Josipa Majic and Ana Burica, came up with the idea and their joint baby, Little Teddy the Guardian, is now for sale at 169 EUR. He keeps an eye on health parameters like heart rate, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and stress levels. The idea behind disguising medical tech in a lovable toy is to provide pediatricians as well as parents with more accurate, consistent and reliable data points that will give a meaningful and complete insight in the child’s health condition. Every time a child takes Teddy The Guardian by the hand or puts Teddy’s paw on his forehead sensors detect the values, capture them and transmit in real-time to a mobile app where data is analyzed, visualized, managed and downloaded by the medical staff and parents.
I can see a lot of applications where sensors embedded in something else could open new possibilities and opportunities.
1 Comment | 
Consumer market, Healthcare, Inspiring example, M2M, User Interaction | Tagged: babies, children, croatia, eHealth, healthcare, Internet of Things, IoT, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, mHealth, monitoring, sensors, teddy the guardian, User interaction | 
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Posted by magnusmelander
January 15, 2014
In my Christmas Internet of Everything Chronicle I wrote that 2014 will be the year when IT players jump on the band wagon and when M&A activities will accelerate. With Google acquisition of Nest for $2,3B and PCT’s acquisition of Internet of things startup ThingWorx for $112M I have already delivered on my prediction. And it’s only January 15 today!
Since data is the gold of M2M Google is an obvious player in this field. And by buying Nest they made a clever inroad to people’s homes. The logic is that people buy “the thermostat that Jobs would have loved” regardless if they need it or not, Google start collect valuable data and use it together with all the other data they have. Then Google can leverage the Nest thermostat and other devices to also collect other type of data from the homes. Brilliant! But it is worthwhile to notice that some Nest loving consumers have already stated in public that Google is not welcome in their home and some have even smashed their Nest device. But I think this is a clever move which will put Google in an interesting position. And their acquisition will be an eye-opener to many other companies. You already know that I believe the only difference between when we connected people and business to the Internet and now when we connect things to the Internet is that ignorance will be no excuse this time.
What an exciting start of the Internet of Everything year 2014!
1 Comment | Consumer market, M2M | Tagged: Google, Internet of Things, IoT, M&A, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, Nest, PCT, thermostat, ThingWorx | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
December 23, 2013
Mobile operators are working hard to formalize alliances for the M2M market. Global M2M Association recently added Bell Mobility and Softbank to the team of collaborating operators. The other GMA members are TeliaSonera, Deutche Telekom, Orange and Telecom Italia. The M2M Multi-Operator Alliance just re-branded themselves to M2M World Alliance and includes SingTel, Telefonica, Etisalat, NTT Docomo, Rogers, KPN, Telstra and Vimpelcom. The aim is to provide something like a similar customer experience across the covered countries, making the alliance brothers and sisters look attractive to customers and partners.
This sounds easy, obvious and becomes a way to compete with the really big players like AT&T and Vodafone. But reality bites. Even if they all use a very standardized network it is very challenging to bridge national, cultural, strategic, technical, operational, practical and political differences between the large organizations and countries involved. And on top, most M2M business is and will remain local. The devices are in many cases fixed why roaming is less of an issue. One can argue that by collaborating with colleagues operators will learn from best practice and further down the road they might make collective decisions on systems to use etc. That would be good but not really so much benefit for the M2M customers as for the operators themselves.
Another way of looking at it would be that as long as these efforts circles around connectivity and related services like billing, support, certification and device monitoring chances are realistic that they could be fruitful. However, the value delivered would be difficult to charge for since customers expect this to work already. And having operators to collaborate on industry specific solutions with increased revenue potential seems less realistic. And as long as all territory isn’t covered the common facade will need odd additions to give some customers what they are looking for. Yet another challenge to the alliance concept is all M2M solutions using other connectivity than the cellular networks. And even worse, it’s obvious that most solutions will use a mix of connectivity and the mix will change over time. Mobile operators have almost 200M M2M subscriptions in use by now and the growth rate remains 25-30% per year. But there are a lot of devices connected using other fixed and wireless technologies. A quite common estimate is that some 10% of the connected things will have a SIM card.
Don’t get me wrong: I really like the airline alliances and appreciate the efforts undertaken by the operators to collaborate. But I don’t think these efforts will change the destiny of M2M in any substantial way.
Leave a Comment » | Business Models, M2M | Tagged: Global M2M Association, Internet of Things, IoT, M2M, M2M Multi-Operator Alliance, M2M World Alliance, Machine-to-Machine | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
December 11, 2013
Companies are investing a lot of money year after year to communicate with their customers and influence their perception of their company and brands. The budgets are there basically to sow for future sales and they remain on the same level year after year measured as a percentage of sales. The ever-increasing challenge is the growing number of channels to be used, and the constantly changing relative importance of them. But the best channel by all means has always been the product itself. Customers who buy it has it and use it often for a long time. People around them might see them using it. Satisfied users as well as dissatisfied users are happy to tell others about their experience.
All of this is well-known facts. But what is less known is that it has become realistically possible to establish a continuous dialogue with the products and also the users of them depending of what product it is, by using modern M2M or Internet of Things technology. Examples of products that often are connected already are: trucks, electrical meters, cars, alarms, vending machines and coffee machines. They are typically connected for operational benefits like being able to tell the truck driver to go to a service facility and depending on where he is propose which one, for electricity companies to measure and report consumption almost in real-time, for vending machines to understand when it’s time to go there to fill it up and better schedule the service route, for coffee machine rental companies to change recipes over the air and for alarm companies to get the alarms automatically. This is all fine and the normal first phase of an M2M investment. Operational value is easy to realize and make ROI investments on thus easier to get project approval and budgets for.
As we all know by now: data is the gold of M2M. And with these things connected we can gather and interpret the data from the connected things and start use it to create strategic value. Examples could be that the owner of the truck could measure how drivers actually drive, provide training to them and become a more sustainable company, the electricity company could offer customers better price off-peak hours, vending machines would get decision support from real data to know what products to have on weekends and warm days in different parts of the country and to use dynamic pricing, coffee machine companies could tune the choice of coffee for different seasons and learn customer’s coffee drinking habits and the alarm companies could add new adjacent services to their alarm infrastructure to become more competitive. All these things are examples of how the collected data could be used to add brand value, competitiveness, customer loyalty, innovation and attractiveness for employees, etc.
We are in the teen-age of M2M aka Internet of Things and many companies have started to connect their things, mainly for operational reasons. But it is still very rare to see companies using the data to create strategic value. Most consumer goods is not connected and if it is, there is no organized use of the data collected. Most professional equipment isn’t connected either and if it is, the data is rarely used in an organized fashion to create strategic value.
But this is about to change and I think we will see a lot of new examples in 2014. A number of new relevant ways of connecting things are available including the power-efficient and very small Bluetooth 4.0 chips with innovative solutions like iBeacon, networks optimized for connecting millions of autonomous things like Sigfox and a host of different ways to associate real life things with an avatar on the Internet like QR-codes, smart cameras, RFID and innovative solutions from companies like Evrythng.
This isn’t about technology. It is only when clever strategists, progressive marketing directors, creative advertising agencies, determined product managers and innovative business developers really understand what is practically and financially possible today that true innovation beyond operational value creation starts to happen. Interesting examples of creative customer communication through products could be the Evian Smart Drop, Volvo’s On Call app enabling their B2B+B2C model and Apple’s recent launch of an iBeacon based service in all 254 Apple Stores in the US.
1 Comment | Business Models, Consumer market, Inspiring example, M2M, Markeing, User Interaction | Tagged: apps, Bluetooth, Brand, Evian, Evrythng, iBeacon, Internet of Things, IoT, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, On Call, QR condes, Rfid, Sigfox, smart camera, Smart Drop, Volvo, Wbird | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
December 5, 2013
Data is the gold of M2M! This remains the most important thing to keep in mind when trying to understand where the industry is going. When collecting the data from sensors and sub-systems of all sorts, we need to understand the context in order to turn the data into useful information. Data analysis without understanding the context opens up for poor conclusions and decision-making down the road. No news here! The value of the information created appears when the information is properly integrated into business systems, decision-making systems, etc. No news here either!
The good news is that the need to understand the context for the data collected and the fact that value materialize when the information is integrated into ERP systems, processes and decision-making systems clearly points towards a fragmented market with successful players focused on industries or functions. Good news is that this is how the software industry has been structured for years. And efficiency is achieved by generic platforms, tools and API:s which specialized applications can utilize.
Since M2M will have to become an international business to benefit from scale this brings us a “glocal” value chain like this: customized or specific software provided to customers by local integrators, resellers or consultants working with specialized international M2M Service Enablers. Software used is based on generic platforms, tools and API:s – this is where Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, SAP and others come in. And the M2M Service Enablers are agnostic to devices and connectivity. And sensors are provided by a variety of specialized companies.
Voila!
So which conclusions could we draw? The three most important conclusions to me are that:
- M2M Service Enablers need to be agnostic to connectivity and device
- there are many M2M Service Enablers in each country today and only the ones who are really specialized, context aware, will survive when it becomes an international market
- generic software companies as well as connectivity providers need to figure out how to work with the best M2M Service Enablers
Leave a Comment » | Business Models, M2M, M2M Service Enablers, Networks | Tagged: business system, Decision-making, ERP systems, glocal, IBM, integrators, Internet of Things, IoT, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, Microsoft, open api, Oracle, SAP, sensors, SMSE, value chain | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
November 10, 2013
Data is the gold of M2M! Today even “monkeys” can connect a couple of things, collect the data in the cloud and present it in an app. And now, in its teenage, the M2M aka Internet of Everything industry is splitting up in three distinct parts: collecting data (sensors and devices), managing data (analyzing, manipulating, combining data) and distributing data (apps, web, integration in business systems, decision-making systems). Each of these three parts have to be perfectly resolved to make a great M2M solution: efficient and sensitive sensors connected using relevant networks, secure and efficient data management where understanding the context is absolutely required, and great, sticky UX in apps and web interfaces are examples from recipes of culinary M2M dishes.
It is when the collected data cautiously has been transformed into information and delivered into business applications that the value of M2M appears. The cold chain for the lobsters from Canada just delivered to the store is uninterrupted. The car that just alarmed the response center of an accident has three passengers. The route suggested by the navigator has risk for ice on a bridge 2 km from here.
With data transformed to information and delivered in relevant applications being the key for M2M solutions it is obvious that the access networks are secondary. Each solution in the hands of customers should ensure proper information delivery using the best available network option given the situation. Requirements on bandwidth, QoS, cost, latency, SLA, power, size, investment horizon, etc should determine which access network to use for each device and sensor. I see only two ways to deliver on this: either the service providers provide a portfolio of access options to serve the clients or the M2M Service Enablers will have to get access from a mix of service providers. At M2M Summit Scandinavia last week I was glad to hear that both Vodafone and Deutche Telekom share this view and aim to provide a solid portfolio of connectivity options for M2M customers.
Talking about access networks for M2M: Connode was just awarded M2M Company of the Year in Sweden by Mobil Business. Once again a great winner, once again a member in Swedish M2M Association.
1 Comment | M2M, M2M Service Enablers, Networks, User Interaction | Tagged: apps, B3CC, B3IT, Connode, Deutche Telekom, Internet of Things, IoT, M2M, M2M Summit, Machine-to-Machine, Mobil Business, network agnostic, SMSE, User interaction, UX, vodafone | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
October 27, 2013
Walker Information
The M2M aka Internet of Everything market is developing quickly. It is interesting to see how analysts, vendors and journalists over the last few months collectively shifted from one big number to another – from number of connected devices to Big Data business potential for Internet of Everything. It is a sign of growing up that we leave the connection focus and huge abstract estimates on number of connected devices for a focus on data and information. Data is the gold of M2M and I’m pleased that the industry focus is shifting towards the information. The industry loves buzzwords and in the M2M case we ended up in the Big Data bucket. ABI just estimated that Big Data and Analytics in M2M will generate revenues of $14 Billion in 2018. We are in the beginning of M2M aka Internet of Everything and organizations are starting to gather useful information from sensors and things. We see more open API:s and people have started blending the collected M2M data with other data to enrich the value of the information. But few if any are even close to a situation which Big Data is addressing. Most data collected in M2M applications are a couple of bytes from time to time. When mobile networks are used its predominantly tiny data in 2G networks, a lot of narrow band wireless sensors are used and when POTS is used it is typically a couple of seconds transmission. And it is not likely to change! Most of the data we are collecting from things are meter reading data, positions, status information, health data, times and so on. Nothing of that comes close to Big Data. But with big volumes of sensors and transactions we will rather need sophisticated decision support systems.
So why are Big Data brought into the M2M aka Internet of Everything discussions? First and foremost people understand that focusing on number of connected devices isn’t interesting any longer and since the solutions and applications most often are industry, function or company specific it is really difficult to translate them into mind-blowing numbers. But by looking at it from a Big Data point of view new huge market numbers are the results. Secondly, as we become more data oriented the IT companies are getting involved in Internet of Everything. And since many of them are preaching the need for Big Data solutions it is easy to bring the “M2M stuff” into the Big Data story.
I see a risk that the Big Data twist on M2M will make organization miss the ball in their own M2M efforts. Volumes, velocity and variety is not among the key issues in M2M projects today. It is too much too soon. In my experience the best approach is to get going, connecting a couple of things together with a relevant specialist M2M Service Enabler who has most of what is needed already. That way we will learn rapidly from real-time data in our own business and the trials are rapid and affordable. Then its quite easy to see what data to collect from which sources and step by step develop the collecting, management and distribution of data for maximum value to the organization. It is only when the information appears in business systems, business processes, decision-making systems or user applications that the value is realized. We simply don’t need any Big Data methods or solutions for this. It is obvious though, that sooner or later, especially if streaming data is involved, organizations will have a lot of data to process. And M2M applications will of course increasingly add to these systems down the road.
1 Comment | M2M, M2M Service Enablers | Tagged: 2G, ABI, B3CC, B3IT, Big Data, Internet of Everything, Internet of Things, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, open api, POTS, PSTN | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
September 23, 2013
Vehicles with wrong tire pressure cause accidents and consume excess energy. Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) were developed to prevent these issues. The first passenger vehicle to adopt tire-pressure monitoring was the Porsche 959 in 1986 and today it is becoming a legal requirement in more and more countries. Car manufacturers have been introducing different TPNS systems more or less voluntarily but in the United States, as of 2008 and the European Union, as of 2012, all new passenger car models released must be equipped with a TPMS. Similar laws are on their way in Asia-Pacific.
TPMS are definitely complex from an engineering, communication and product point of view and the combined investment, including equipment in garages and motor vehicle inspection sites, the sensors in the tires and the receiving part of the in-car system is very big. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the US estimates that 660 fatalities and 33,000 injuries each year are attributable to crashes caused by underinflated tires (Bob Ulrich, Editor, at Modern Tire Dealer) so it seems like well working TPMS can help save lives, money and the planet. But every system like this is always a potential hacker target and Rutgers University and the University of South Carolina released a joint study some years ago indicating that they had succeeded to hack a car through the TPMS.
In any case, this is a typical M2M application – it’s been around for years, many of us have them, they are not SIM-based and they deliver on the three M2M promises: safety, sustainability and efficiency.
1 Comment | Inspiring example, ITS, M2M, Safety and Security, Transportation | Tagged: B3CC, B3IT, Internet of Things, IoT, M2M, Machine-to-Machine, NHTSA, Porsche 959, Rutgers University, security, SIM, sustainability, TPMS, Traffic, Transportation, University of South Carolina | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
September 13, 2013
I was chairing Short Range Wireless Forum in Amsterdam 2006 and
NFC was the hot topic of the day since Nokia announced the first NFC phone the day before. But the combination of its limitations and the fact that only some vendors decided to implement NCF seriously made it yet another promising technology that never took off. These days Apple is introducing iPhone 5C / 5S and iOS7. This launch is as always followed and debated by a lot of people but still very few seem to have captured
iBeacon. I believe that is yet a significant enabler by Apple which rapidly will become an important building block for Internet of Things applications and could make NFC redundant.Imagine entering into an indoor location like a University Campus. Your iPhone connects to iBeacon automatically over Bluetooth and depending on who you are it will provide you with directions where to go for the next class, it will take you to the canteen and take care of the payment leaving you with a receipt. One build wireless coverage in a location quite cheaply. Lets move to a department store, shopping mall or train station and the use cases are easy to see.A beacon, or mote, is like a lighthouse for radio transmission.
Estimote is s startup providing beacons supporting iBeacon. The beacons are a couple of centimeters big and include an ARM processor, accelerometer, flash memory and Bluetooth connectivity. A beacon could cover up to 50 m radius and have battery life time of around 24 months. Estimotes developer kits give you three beacons for 99$ which gives us an idea of price points.iBeacon leverage
Bluetooth 4.0 (also called Bluetooth Low Energy BLE or Bluetooth Smart) which was approved in July 2010 and is told to be a stable platform to develop solutions on. With over 19.000 companies as members in
Bluetooth SIG and over 2.5 Billion products shipped Bluetooth is a well supported technology across industries. I believe developers will love this technology and application enabler why pick-up will happen quickly and massively. When we look back at these announcements a couple of years from now I think we will conclude that Bluetooth 4 was the real breakthrough for Bluetooth, iBeacon enabled a new generation of apps and NFC didn’t make it.Exciting times!
Leave a Comment » | Consumer market, M2M, M2M Service Enablers, Networks, User Interaction | Tagged: Apple, apps, B3CC, B3IT, beacon, Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, Bluetooth SIG, bluetooth smart, Estimote, iBeacon, Internet of Things, IoT, lighthouse, M2M, NFC, Nokia | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
September 5, 2013
We have already gone from connectivity focus to focus on operational value: faster, cheaper, greener, safer and so on. Pain and results are easy to quantify and ROI calculations fairly straight forward. But the actual development of the solution requires a M2M Service Enabler to become affordable to develop and maintain. This is old news together with my mantra: “data is the gold of M2M“. But it is interesting to see that the service enablement space is heating up.
To start with, my Swedish M2M Service Enablement alliance just said welcome to member number 14 and all Swedish mobile operators but 3 are sponsors. The members in general report growing interest and business as customers are becoming educated and ready to move. Next week 12 Swedish M2M companies will join me going to Düsseldorf as bilateral partners to the M2M Summit where we have a common stand and speaker slots. That is more M2M service enablers then ever participating in an international M2M event arrangement I have done up until now.
Earlier this week Telit announced their acquisition of ILS Technologies for $8.5m cash and Telenor Connexion the purchase of technology and IPR from Iowa. Both ILS and Iowa are M2M Service Enablers! Increasing M&A activity in a segment is always a sign of market consolidation and a result of executives being convinced that they know where the industry is going and where they want to be. I expect many more M&A deals with M2M Service Enablers involved over the next year or two.
My key advise to M2M Service Enablers remain: focus, focus, focus. As the M2M business becomes glocal you will meet competition from a lot of places and players. But customers only see two or three players in any given industry or niche.
Leave a Comment » | M2M, M2M Service Enablers | Tagged: B3CC, B3IT, ILS Technologies, Internet of Things, IoT, Iowa, M2M, M2M Summit, Machine-to-Machine, SMSE, Telenor Connexion, telit | Permalink
Posted by magnusmelander
What a wonderful idea: a cute teddy bear full of sensors to track vital signs of the kid who is playing with it. Vulnerable babies will be measured and monitored without being bothered. And even better, the data collected will be more accurate than when they are bothered by a nurse or doctor. As well as taking measurements, nurses and parents can also communicate with their children remotely by playing songs and recording bedtime stories through the toy.Two master students from Zagreb, Croatia, Josipa Majic and Ana Burica, came up with the idea and their joint baby, Little Teddy the Guardian, is now for sale at 169 EUR. He keeps an eye on health parameters like heart rate, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and stress levels. The idea behind disguising medical tech in a lovable toy is to provide pediatricians as well as parents with more accurate, consistent and reliable data points that will give a meaningful and complete insight in the child’s health condition. Every time a child takes Teddy The Guardian by the hand or puts Teddy’s paw on his forehead sensors detect the values, capture them and transmit in real-time to a mobile app where data is analyzed, visualized, managed and downloaded by the medical staff and parents.
connectcompute 