IoT will explode when 1) open hardware gains unprecedented trust between the user and their hardware, 2) users begin to prefer open source software because that's just how the most secure and user-first software is maintained, and 3) TBD open hosting.
1 + 2 = "my bulb is an open spec made by factory X running on transparent software maintained by people who care"
3 = "and I host it myself on Y"
3 is the missing link, and it's yesterday's self-hosting that hasn't made it to it's next incarnation. When we'd self-host our web site, we owned the box, owned the set-up and felt absolutely in control of the system. It may not have been as reliable or fast as a hosting service, but there is comfort in full ownership and full control. To their own detriment the shared hosting industry went to shit when they settled for their shady marketing eco-system (paid reviews, not unlimited unlimited quotas, cheap bad service). No one trusts shared hosting now, and so Squarespace and the like have gained popularity, but that's a fully corporate owned opaque service.
The closest to 3 we have now is AWS and Google Cloud and the like, but they are not made for normal users. Dropbox would have been a good candidate but they lose credibility with every word they speak (damage control clearly centered on themselves, ignoring customer complaints).
3 could be 1) a new self-hosting local box that has it's own app or something that's fully contained and in your house. 2) A cloud provider that has managed to detach their corporate interests from their shared infrastructure (like amazon and google have towards developers). Consumers don't want their IoT console cluttered with ads or "recommended items for you" and the last thing consumers want is for Google to mine their personal IoT information. Or 3) a standardized open source cloud platform where users can take their data from one provider to another while enjoying full ownership (local backups), privacy (full encryption), and portability (zero lock-down).
3 is the open-source http://home-assistant.io engine hosted on a local Raspberry Pi and accessed remotely through a DD-WRT OpenVPN. It's here now, and it's amazing.
Exactly. When this (and the like) goes mainstream, and I can buy standard-based hardware, IoT will explode. Consumers do not trust corporations, and will not let them in their home. (This might sound counter intuitive because corporations are all over our homes, but consumers don't want that, and IoT is extremely personal -- it's the home.)
My prediction is that 3 will not happen, and what happens in its place is going to perpetuate the tech giant oligopoly. With the tech giants getting into the business of collecting any remaining missing data points using IoT, it is only a matter of time before most of us are inside houses which are periodically sending data to servers at Amazon, Google et. al.
Their marketing might of course is hard to match. But they are also more likely to know more about your present needs with the trove of data at their disposal. Which cloud provider is going to match that?
Respected experts like Andrew Ng talk about data being a 'defensible barrier'[1] . Under this euphemism lies practices such as 'creating products which do not produce revenue but are intended for data collection'. Yes, folks at HN have known about these things for a long time, but my point is the stamp of endorsement for these disturbing practices from people who are regarded as authority figures, and the general absence of debate around these practices.
No one seems to give a shit about how much information their PC is sending to Apple or Microsoft or the NSA. Generally its only tech savvy people that know about open source.
1 + 2 = "my bulb is an open spec made by factory X running on transparent software maintained by people who care"
3 = "and I host it myself on Y"
3 is the missing link, and it's yesterday's self-hosting that hasn't made it to it's next incarnation. When we'd self-host our web site, we owned the box, owned the set-up and felt absolutely in control of the system. It may not have been as reliable or fast as a hosting service, but there is comfort in full ownership and full control. To their own detriment the shared hosting industry went to shit when they settled for their shady marketing eco-system (paid reviews, not unlimited unlimited quotas, cheap bad service). No one trusts shared hosting now, and so Squarespace and the like have gained popularity, but that's a fully corporate owned opaque service.
The closest to 3 we have now is AWS and Google Cloud and the like, but they are not made for normal users. Dropbox would have been a good candidate but they lose credibility with every word they speak (damage control clearly centered on themselves, ignoring customer complaints).
3 could be 1) a new self-hosting local box that has it's own app or something that's fully contained and in your house. 2) A cloud provider that has managed to detach their corporate interests from their shared infrastructure (like amazon and google have towards developers). Consumers don't want their IoT console cluttered with ads or "recommended items for you" and the last thing consumers want is for Google to mine their personal IoT information. Or 3) a standardized open source cloud platform where users can take their data from one provider to another while enjoying full ownership (local backups), privacy (full encryption), and portability (zero lock-down).