Episode 394: This company thinks TinyML will be big

This week’s episode starts out with a pretty grim perspective, with Kevin Tofel and I discussing what the end of net neutrality means for the internet of things. We then talk about facial recognition technology in the U.S. and in China. We try  to lighten the mood with discussion of the IOTA blockchain for the internet of things, a $99 doorbell, the reviews of the Amazon Echo Spot, and new skills for Wink. We also discuss data on IoT device consumption. This week, we answer a listener question about why someone might want a hub for his or her smart home. Blink offers a $99 video doorbell to go with its lines of battery-powered cameras. In keeping with our dystopian worldview, the guest this week is Janice Tsai from Mozilla who discusses privacy for IoT and Mozilla’s Holiday Buyers guide. Janice  and I discuss what risks connected devices pose, the things consumers should look for and what she’d like to see companies do to protect user privacy. The show wasn’t quite what I imagined for right before the holiday, but maybe it’s a good way to head into the new year, ready to face the good and the bad that connected tech can bring. Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel Guest: Janice Tsai, senior HCI research scientist, Mozilla Sponsors: ADT and FSG What does face recognition at scale mean? Check out what blockchain can offer IoT Welcome to price pressure in the smart home This rubber duck needs your location What consumers need to know about device privacy The post Episode 143: The IoT dystopia episode appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

21 Dec 201744min

We begin this week with another cautionary tale about bricked connected devices. This week it’s an automotive product called Mojio. From there I discuss the things I recently learned about building wireless networks in industrial settings while Kevin talks about how much money connected plants can save. We then get super nerdy on innovations in low-power chips before dipping into a lot of news such as IDC’s expectations for the IoT and new talents for the Google Home, Amazon Echo and Honeywell’s controller. We end the show with reviews on two connected devices we installed and answer a question about leak sensors from a listener. Levi’s offers a jacket made with smart fabric from Google. Stick around and you’ll hear from Nick Langston, head of business development at TE Connectivity, talking about the future of smart fabrics. While the biggest use case so far is in smart clothing to detect health data, Langston envisions a future where those same sensors might be put into sheets, carpets or even cars. He also shares an idea about what might be the coolest jersey ever that would react to your player getting hit on the field or light up in response to your team scoring a point. It’s pretty cool. Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham Guest: Nick Langston, TE Connectivity Sponsors: Lux Products and ADT Another brick in the IoT device bag How transistor design will change for IoT The IoT will be worth $1 trillion by 2020 What happens to privacy if your bedsheets are a sensor? Smart fabrics are soft, but the business model is hard The post Episode 142: Smart sheets, suits and carpets are coming appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

14 Dec 201753min

Last week Amazon made a slew of IoT announcements at its annual user conference, bringing established functions into general availability and surprising us with the launch of Amazon’s Free RTOS after it hired the man responsible for the most popular embedded OS for microcontrollers. It also introduced Alexa for business. Kevin and I share our thoughts on that and also discussed Microsoft’s own platform announcement, the Google/Amazon spat, and Walmart’s search for a cheap sensor. I share my learnings from an event on IoT business models held at Target’s Open house last week and Kevin shares his thoughts on the GoControl/Linear garage door controller. We also discuss naming conventions thanks to a question on the IoT Podcast hotline. Amazons IoT dreams are becoming clear. The guest this week put the challenges of building an IoT project into perspective. After years of being “spoiled by cloud computing,” Upal Basu of NGP Capital says that we have to reframe our IoT projects with longer ROIs and more of a focus on decentralized deployments away from the corporate offices. His ideas make sense for anyone familiar with complexities of deploying sensors, and it’s a good interview for folks thinking about how to transform her business using connectivity, sensors and cloud analytics. I hope you enjoy the show. Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham Guest: Upal Basu, General Partner at NGP Capital Sponsors: Lux Products and ADT Greengrass, Free RTOS, Device Defender and more from Amazon Alexa gets her MBA Sustainable IoT hardware is actually a service You returns on IoT investments should be years, not 12-18 months The value in IoT deployments happens where the sensors are The post Episode 141: Alexa suits up for business appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

7 Dec 201756min

This week we kick off the show with a bit about voice such as Google getting better at understanding your commands, the ability to talk to Waze and notifications coming to the Amazon Echo. We also touch on China’s plans to create standards for the smart home, including a preference for NB-IoT over Wi-Fi. Weather reporting gets more accurate without sensors and Kevin and I discuss the end of two smart light bulb startups. Finally, I offer a pro tip for the holidays and we answer a listener question about WeMo and HomeKit. Google’s Home speaker and AI assistant. After all the news, things get a bit grim as I discuss the future of battle with Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. He’s part of a team that won a research grant from the U.S. Army Research Lab to figure out how to bring the internet of things to the battlefield. Our discussion ranges from technical elements to the ethics of having machines kill people. It will make you think. Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel Guest: Tarek Abdelzaher, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Sponsors: Spark Cognition and ADT Google Home gets a great new feature China’s setting some standards for the smart home Goodbye Emberlight and so long Stack Lights What can Facebook teach us about programming sensors? Will machines kill in the war of the future? The post Episode 140: How IoT will change war appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

30 Nov 201750min

You guys, this week’s podcast is all about the toys. Specifically toys for your kids, your dog and your loved ones. In the last year Kevin and I have tried many devices and have compiled our experiences into a gift guide for the connected life. You’ll find both our favorites like the June oven and utilitarian objects like the Ecobee 4 thermostat among a $20 smart camera and $30 motion sensor for kids. We also handled the few news items for the week– namely Apple deciding to delay the sale of the Home Pod. This is the $20 Wyze camera. It’s a solid gift. We also took on an incredibly topical question from Aaron in Ontario who asked about heating cables for his roof and recommended switches for automating outdoor holiday lights. As a Texan I’m drawing a blank on the remote control for the heating cables, but I shared my favorite outdoor-rated smart plugs with him. This year there have been a bunch of new Wi-Fi options, which is awesome. Enjoy the show. I’m losing faith in HomeKit again This year’s best gifts for the smart home The best connected gifts for kids Cool connected stocking stuffers Crazy expensive stuff that is hard to justify The post Episode 139: The 2017 IoT Podcast Gift Guide! appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

22 Nov 201739min

There was a lot of small news this week including updates to the Google Home/Assistant ecosystem that Kevin and I discuss on this week’s podcast. I share my feelings on the Google Mini and then we segue into a conversation about Google’s new AI framework for embedded devices that launched this week. We also discuss the push by smart home and lock companies to give delivery or service people access to your home. SmartThings gets local control for some devices this week. Kevin reviews the Wink Lookout security bundle and we take a listener question about what to look for in a smart home camera. The Wink Lookout bundle works right out of the box. Our guest this week is awesome. I speak with Michael Sherwood, Director of Technology and Innovation City of Las Vegas, about plans for a traffic light that detects pollution and can send cars along before it builds up, and what it really means to build a smart city. Sherwood shares a lot of good insights about the challenges of building a smart city that we don’t often see. It’s a good show. Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel Guests: Michael Sherwood Director of Technology and Innovation City of Las Vegas Sponsors: SparkCognition and ADT Google’s making some changes to Now and Google Assistant Who would you let into your home alone? Wink’s new security system has one big flaw How a smart city gets that way This is the biggest challenge halting innovation in smart cities The post Episode 138: Wink’s security system review and Las Vegas is a smart city appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

16 Nov 201753min

This week’s show has flying cars and lawsuits. What more can anyone really ask for? Kevin and I kick off the show discussing Waymo’s autonomous minivans, Uber’s plan for helicars, and the injunction that ADT won against Ring. There are plenty of other bits of security news that span the smart home all the way to a new survey full of dumb things industrial shops do related to security. Finally, Congress is trying again with an IoT security bill. This week also had a huge chip deal, bad news for Logitech device owners and an insightful question/comment related to the Amazon Echo on the IoT Hotline. One of the Notion sensors that now works with Nest. Our guest this week is Grant Erickson, the president of The Thread Group, who tried hard to convince me that this week’s news out of the wireless standard organization wasn’t bad. Thread is implementing an official certification and something called “Thread Ready” which is like some kind of royal bastard. It won’t have all of the features of Thread and certified Thread gear won’t recognize it. I’m worried it will break the standard, but Erickson explains what it means. You’re gonna want to hear this. Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel Guest: Grant Erickson, the president of The Thread Group Sponsors: SparkCognition and ADT Why minivans are good autonomous vehicles There is no such thing as an airgapped network Can we please get an expiration date for devices? Did Nest just break the Thread protocol? We’ll see tens of Thread devices at CES next year. The post Episode 137: Is Nest breaking Thread? appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

9 Nov 201747min

The best news of the week is that Sony is bringing back the Aibo robotic puppy. The bad news is that it will costs a pretty penny. Kevin Tofel and I discuss the pup, San Diego’s smart city efforts, the Apple HomePod, and funding for Ayla’s IoT platform as a service. I emailed companies to find out who has updated after KRACK and Kevin shares smart home data from Mozilla. Finally, we review the Amazon Echo Plus with ZigBee and Amazon Alexa’s new smart home interface. The new Sony Aibo has OLED eyes and so many moving joints. This week’s guest is JoAnna Sohovich, CEO of Chamberlain Group, who came on the show to explain where Chamberlain is heading with new commercial products, and its new subscription plan for IFTTT. Sohovich has been at Chamberlain for 20 months and in that time she’s focused on turning what was only a product business into a service business. Part of this is to better align with costs, but there is also a chance to boost margins by offering software features and integrations. We also hit on the future of smart home subscriptions. Enjoy the show! Hosts: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel Guests: JoAnna Sohovich, CEO of Chamberlain Group Sponsors: SAP and ADT Bring on the monthly subscription fees Ayla gets $60 million and a Chinese joint venture Why you may not want to buy an Amazon Echo Plus Why Chamberlain is charging $1 for monthly IFTTT access Chamberlain’s plans for the commercial market The post Episode 136: Sony’s Aibo is back and Chamberlain’s CEO explains its moves appeared first on IoT Podcast - Internet of Things.

2 Nov 201751min