Is the Internet of Things really about to be realized?

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Recently, Samsung President and CEO BK Yoon said at CES that the era of the Internet of Things has arrived, and he hopes that the industry will cooperate widely to open up the infinite possibilities of the Internet of Things. Yoon's heartfelt call is indeed inspiring, especially for those brothers who have been looking forward to the implementation of the Internet of Things.

In fact, in 2011, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "12th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Internet of Things". Since then, the Internet of Things has been in the spotlight. In recent years, we have also seen some local projects, such as smart cities, smart transportation, smart tourism, smart agriculture, cloud computing, etc. After all, as a huge system, the Internet of Things really needs the cooperation of everyone, just like everyone respects traffic rules.

Some people say that the Internet of Things will never come. In the face of technology, human nature seems to be ahead.
1. Is it really efficient?

Before the first CES in 1967 and the advent of the Internet in 1969, all devices were designed to save time and improve efficiency. The first TV remote control was born in 1950, and it was made for lazy people. Since then, the remote control and its successors have helped people save time from the sofa to the TV, of course, and of course, the saved time is used to watch TV! But in fact, those so-called time-saving devices do not save time.

During the CES exhibition in recent days, companies of all sizes spent millions to promote their devices, equipment, operating systems and apps as the next "remote control". They also used a vague but fashionable concept - the Internet of Things. And the meaning of this concept seems to be Bluetooth or Wi-Fi devices.

How many of these companies are just hype concepts and how many will be short-lived? Maybe smart doorbells will succeed, smart potted plants will succeed, but will smart milk bottles, Wi-Fi kettles, and smart belts succeed? Compared with ordinary bicycle meters, can smart bicycle pedals really solve real problems? It's not that these devices are not good. But think about it, if you have all the smart hardware above, you will become busy checking the apps on your phone all day long.

The time you originally wanted to save is wasted again.
2. Pros and cons of smart hardware

When using smart hardware, you need to weigh the pros and cons. In fact, American families spend more time using Nest smart thermostats than they did before. You may like to exercise more after using Fitbit, but you have to check the app and charge it every week, and you can't contact all your friends on social networks.

If you look at these data, you will think that the Internet of Things will not be realized. Tim Baxter, Samsung's chief operating officer in the United States, said at a press conference on Monday: "One-third of Americans are interested in using smart homes. But less than 2% actually use them." This is an interesting data. It shows that two-thirds of Americans are not interested in smart homes. These two-thirds should hope to enjoy the convenience brought by smart homes, but they also know the price they need to pay.
3. Intelligent hardware automation?

Samsung CEO BK Yoon gave a speech about the Internet of Things at the show on Monday. At the beginning of the speech, a video was played, interviewing people from all walks of life on the question "What do you want technology to bring?" All the people gave almost the same answer: saving time and reducing labor. If you don't believe it, you can try to interview people around you.

So how does Samsung realize its IoT vision? To connect all its products to the Internet by 2020. What kind of networking technology is needed? Let me give you two examples to answer this question. First, when you get home, your Bluetooth speaker starts playing your favorite music. Second, when you get up in the morning, your TV automatically plays your favorite show.

After all these years, we are still talking about remote control and automation. We have discussed so many problems that have been solved. In fact, you can save a lot of time if you just check WeChat less often.
4. Information Islands

At least for now, the Internet of Things is played by big companies. Apple is developing its own smart home system, and Samsung and Google are also doing the same thing. If you think that Google, Samsung and Apple can play happily in the field of smart home, you are too naive. Without cooperation and playing happily, the Internet of Things will not take off. Therefore, Yoon said that Samsung's Internet of Things system will remain open, which is a veiled attack on Apple's closed system.

Even the promise that all Samsung devices can connect to other devices is useless. You may say that in a few years there will be devices compatible with all standard protocols, there will be an application that rules all apps, or there will be no need for apps at all. This is certainly possible.

In such a fierce environment, it seems impossible to get companies to cooperate. For example, Apple Pay, Apple's payment platform, lost some partners within a week because they wanted to develop their own payment system. Spotify, a streaming music service company, has not been able to persuade Taylor Swift to return.

The most likely outcome of these partnerships is that they will develop independently rather than in a group. Companies will not communicate too much with each other because they don’t need to. Then our lives will become like choosing different smart hardware based on different interests and hobbies, and these smart hardware cannot communicate with each other, and there will be isolated islands everywhere.