Consumer-Facing Internet of Things Products: Challenges & Opportunities

Purpose and goal

The project set out to tackle two goals. First, to map out and predict the size, focus and commercial potential of IoT for the already existing consumer-product companies as well as consumer-facing IoT-start-ups in Sweden today. Second, to identify common problems be it technologies, toolkits, infrastructure, design competence, creative disruptions in business modelling or spectrum access for this sector, both from the developer and end-user perspectives. We found that it is thriving in ´pockets´ of the market such as sports and wellbeing, less so in home, gardens, or cities.

Results and expected effects

Obstacles hindering the development: - missing de facto standards for communication, wireless connectivity, data, sensors and actuators - missing IoT-platforms connecting smart objects without locking data into proprietary solutions - missing use-case infrastructure providing compelling applications - a lack of design thinking in many professions - which in turn results in missing data sources that form the basis of a larger transformation Opportunities existing in: - wellbeing & sports - a new ´folkhemmet´ that could be built with this tech - a smart data layer

Approach and implementation

We identified a obstacles and opportunities for this development of consumer-facing IoT products based on: interviews with ´thought leaders´ in industry, a study of what consumers have in their homes already, interviews with sports & wellbeing app users and designers, together with an attempt to scope the size of the market. A triangulation between these disparate sources provided insight into the struggles of the actors on this market as well as what consumers might be interested in sharing and owning.