Smart homes have changed human living habits, and smart chemical factories are gradually reducing carbon emissions while continuously improving operational efficiency... All this confirms that the penetration of the Internet of Things into all walks of life is still deepening, and capital is also rushing in. According to McKinsey's "Internet of Things: Seizing Acceleration Opportunities" report, by 2030, the Internet of Things will create up to $12.6 trillion in economic value worldwide.
With the continuous increase of investment by giants such as Google and Amazon, there are also many unicorn companies in the field of Internet of Things that have risen rapidly. Especially in 2021, the first U.S. stock listed IoT development platform service provider appeared in the market, and at this point, the IoT track officially turned a page of turmoil.
Looking back at 2021, what has happened or is happening that has had a significant impact on the IoT industry? Looking ahead to 2022, what are the new trends that will accelerate the IoT era? To this end, we have summarized seven key words to help you gain insight into the future of the IoT industry.
Keyword one: the chip famine will continue
In the past year, the "chip famine" has swept through many industries, including cars, mobile phones, computers, game consoles, refrigerators, etc.: many car companies have officially announced price increases or discontinued some models, global smartphone shipments have shrunk, PS5 is difficult to find, the price remains high, and factory owners even squat to the headquarters of chip companies to wait for chips...
The shortage of chip supply is also a huge "hidden danger" for the rapidly developing Internet of Things industry. IoT Analytics expects the number of connected IoT devices worldwide to exceed 27 billion by 2025. However, the increase in chip production capacity is far from catching up with the increase in the number of IoT terminals.
Although the "chip famine" restricts the development of the Internet of Things industry to a certain extent, it is also forcing Internet of Things companies to reduce the complexity of the chip supply chain and system costs through product technology innovation, and achieve "curve overtaking". For example, through the main control capability of cloud modules or chips, replace the original MCU chips, and help developers solve the problem of missing cores and quickly realize product intelligence in the way of "curve saving the country".
Keyword two: carbon neutrality spawns new opportunities for the industry
"Carbon neutrality will be a new economic growth point in the next stage, thus replacing the dependence of the mainland economy on real estate and infrastructure." With the establishment of the "double carbon target" and the gradual heating up of the concept of carbon neutrality, similar views have frequently emerged in the market. Under the requirements of the "double carbon" goal, all walks of life are exploring a new development path with the help of low-carbon technology applications. This will undoubtedly accelerate scientific and technological innovation, and spawn new industries and new formats, stimulating new investment and new domestic demand. This change of industry and lifestyle will also bring many new economic growth points.
In this process, the Internet of Things technology will also be promising: based on the Internet of Things, through a variety of sensors, you can warn when the degree of air pollution exceeds the standard; timely warning when industrial production of combustible gases and harmful gases leak from the factory; monitoring of excessive industrial wastewater discharge; reduce the use of chemical, water and other resources in agricultural production, to achieve energy conservation and consumption reduction...
The industrial field with huge carbon emissions is one of the earliest areas where the Internet of Things has landed. A typical case is Fuxing New Materials Company in central China, through the intelligent lighting solutions provided by Bilinwei, the comprehensive reduction of workshop lighting energy consumption and carbon emissions by 65%, achieving a reduction of more than 270 tons of annual carbon emissions; and in the far northwest, Internet of Things technology is also promoting the realization of green agriculture. Based on the Internet of Things technology, Longxin Technology has created a "plug and play" data acquisition and control output system and a "smart brain" greenhouse management system for agricultural bases, which can reduce the loss of production links and help achieve carbon neutrality goals.
Keyword three: smart scene to expand
From Wi-Fi to Zigbee to Bluetooth, short- and medium-range communication protocols have been unable to carry all the new needs of smart scenarios from indoor to outdoor, while cellular communication protocols such as LTE Cat.1 and NB-IoT are more and more widely used, and the distance demand for connections in the Field of Internet of Things is becoming more and more "far". Under this trend, the application of the Internet of Things is fully expanding to outdoor, urban areas, factories, buildings and other scenarios.
The transformation of the smart urban area of Baishizhou, the largest urban village in Shenzhen, is the best example of the expansion of the application scenario of the Internet of Things. Baishizhou, with a population of more than 150,000 and a land area of 459,000 square meters, provides ample wisdom scenes, especially outdoor scenes. With the help of the urban operation and management platform built by LVGEM Real Estate, Baishizhou implants intelligence into multiple scenarios such as communities, hotels, parks, apartments, and commercial centers, thereby supporting the intelligent application of the upper layer and realizing the efficient, complete and high-quality "all-scenario intelligent" urban construction.
In 2021, chip famine, carbon neutrality, and expansion scenarios have brought new challenges and new opportunities to the Internet of Things industry; so what are the important trends in the Internet of Things in 2022 that has arrived?
Keyword four: large factory layout, industry heating up
Today, large enterprises in industries such as manufacturing are accelerating their intelligent transformation, so that the application of the Internet of Things continues to heat up. In the future, traditional manufacturing enterprises will transform to "smart factories", replace labor with automation and mechanical equipment, and the processing and manufacturing process is completely completed by equipment, which can also be interconnected, and personnel, materials, equipment, finished products, and semi-finished products can be integrated in control.
In this process, whether for cost-effective or efficiency considerations, companies often do not choose to "go it alone". Therefore, in recent years, we have seen the world's big players come in and maintain firm huge investments, such as Google's self-developed Fuchsia OS operating system, Microsoft's Azure IoT, and Amazon's AWS IoT. Tuya Intelligence, which landed on the New York Stock Exchange in March last year, is committed to creating a neutral and open IoT industry ecosystem, so that developers can rely on the software and hardware development tools and intelligent ecology provided by the company to achieve intelligent transformation with low threshold and efficiency, and at the same time, through ecological integration, jump out of the traditional commercial siege of "single-handedness" and enter a larger commercial space in the era of intelligent connection of all things.
Keyword five: IoT privatization deployment
Nowadays, with the accelerated popularity of the Internet of Things, smart devices and applications have become indispensable tools for enterprise operations, and the development of its own IoT platform can not only reduce the management cost of enterprise smart devices, but also greatly improve the stability and security of smart devices. As a result, the deployment of IoT will become a common choice for all enterprises, especially large enterprises.
This trend can also be clearly seen from the layout of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Tuya and other IoT privatization businesses. Google builds a common smart device management platform for enterprises from the perspective of the Internet of Things operating system, while Microsoft and Amazon help enterprises manage IoT devices through innovative functions and services from the perspective of cloud computing. Tuya prefers to build a private IoT platform for enterprises, which is more suitable for larger enterprises, complex businesses and higher data security requirements.
Its IoT platform privatization deployment solution, Tuya Cube, helps enterprises flexibly and autonomously build their own IoT platforms, so that data, applications, devices and operations can be privatized at the same time, and seamless access to the intelligent connection of all things scenarios, enjoying independent and rich ecological benefits. Industry insiders commented that Tuya Cube is like creating an intelligent "beacon" for enterprises, which can be independent of each other and can communicate with each other.
Keyword six: The Scale of the Internet of Things
Nowadays, the scale of the Internet of Things is becoming the new normal: on the one hand, after years of continuous penetration, the Internet of Things technology has begun to show its skills in many fields such as smart industry, smart agriculture, smart wine tourism, smart retail, smart energy, etc., and the coverage continues to expand; on the other hand, in the application process of all walks of life, The Internet of Things technology is taking the lead from point to point, showing a trend of fire.
Taking the asset-heavy field such as factories as an example, IoT devices are moving from sporadic "customized" production of a few factories and equipment to industry-wide, replicable, batch intelligence. Traditional factories will face the final "street battles" such as reduced efficiency and increased equipment loss, and the "super factory" that creates all-scenario wisdom is one of the solutions to the problem.
The case of the well-known electrical company Hongshi Electric Appliance depicts the appearance of a super-energy-saving, ultra-efficient and ultra-intelligent "super factory": replacing manual monitoring with automation equipment, the monitoring efficiency has been increased by more than 3 times; through the visual management of the production process, the number of abnormal production has been reduced by more than 50%; relying on the automatic scheduling engine, the SMT production lines can be seamlessly docked and the vacancy period can be reduced. It is worth mentioning that Hongshi Electric Appliances chose to cooperate with IoT platform enterprises during the transformation period, and completed the difficult road of "from 0 to 1" in the eyes of traditional factories in only half a year, which once again confirmed the important role of IoT platforms in the development of the industry.
Keyword seven: interoperability becomes the procurement standard
In today's rapid development of the Internet of Things, interoperability is becoming an important bottleneck restricting the development of the industry. At present, the pattern of the Internet of Things industry is dominated by a fragmented, dedicated, supplier willingness to implant ecosystem, and there are many "chimney-style" ecosystems in this pattern, which limit the expansion and integration capabilities of the Internet of Things, affect the deployment of the Internet of Things and push up the cost.
Most enterprise users and consumers see the cost of installing IoT solutions as one of the most difficult problems to solve. In this context, enterprise users are increasingly inclined to take interoperability as a procurement standard and promote the interconnection of IoT systems and platforms from the demand side.
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Beacon... A series of communication protocols have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but from the perspective of future trends, such a diverse communication protocol may also be unified. Today, many IoT companies are actively helping customers access to a variety of standard protocols such as Zigbee and Mater, which will be implemented, to promote the realization of IoT interoperability with one-stop service.
From the above seven keywords, it can be seen that although there are still some challenges in the Internet of Things industry, the industry still shows a rapid development trend. In this process, those who are keen on staking the land may not be able to stand out; enterprises with outstanding capabilities in the Internet of Things development platform and Internet of Things framework can emerge in the future competition and become the industry leader by stimulating the potential of partners.
In the high-tech sector, every wave of new technology emerges a new leader. If cloud computing has created giants such as Amazon and Microsoft, then in the Internet of Things industry, platform-based enterprises and service providers are expected to open a true all-scenario commercialization model and open up the "great navigation era" belonging to the Internet of Things.