IoT Evolution Expo: The Development of IoT Product

The IoT Evolution Expo running at full steam, and we interviewed our sponsors and exhibitors to get a bit of a preview of what to expect from them at the show, and some insights into their view on the IoT industry.

Here, we spoke to Daniel Price, CEO, Breadware, which will be exhibiting in booth 1605 at the IoT Evolution Expo.

Breadware was founded as a specialized product development firm with a focus on the new-at-the-time breed of products that connect to the internet. This category of products has become known as the Internet of Things or IoT. Breadware received early and rapid success in IoT by winning Startup of the Year in Nevada and Best IoT Product Development Solution from IoT Evolution Expo. Breadware strives to be a trusted guide through IoT product development by providing access to information, tools, resources, and best-in-class vendors in order to maximize success for our customers.

Here is a little peek into Price's thinking:

How has the Evolution of IoT technology over the past 12 months helped the industry grow?

The last 12 months have seen a few important developments for IoT:

Governmental Policy - Innovation has been running ahead of policy by a few years, but policy is now putting in some measures to govern the IoT frontier. California passed the first legislation on IoT cybersecurity with SB-327. There are similar IoT cybersecurity bills currently in the federal legislature.

Regulations (and consequences) Going into Effect- Last year at IoT Expo we spent quite a bit of time discussing the new GDPR regulations that stood to fine companies up to 4% global revenue for misuse of private user data. The first hammer has now fallen on Google who has received a 50,000,000 EURO fine from the French regulatory authority for violation of the GDPR

Infrastructure - The NB-IOT and CAT-M infrastructures have continued to grow and now have significant coverage in most major cities. Additionally, Bluetooth SIG release the BLE mesh protocol which is paving the way to allow for ubiquitous meshing.

Ecosystem Collaborations- IoT solution providers have become more collaborative in the last year and we are beginning to see more horizontal and vertical collaborations/partnerships. This makes it easier for companies building IoT products to navigate the ecosystem and to locate the resources that they need. This trend will continue as the as-of-now highly fragmented frontier of IoT becomes more unified by best practices and solutions.

What elements of the IoT are most relevant to your company?

Breadware operates in the ground-to-cloud space of IoT. Our focus is on the “Things” in the Internet of Things. Therefore the elements of IoT that we keep vigilant awareness of are the newest sensors that are being released, the latest wireless modules and radios, advances in battery technology, updates in wireless product certifications and regulations, and rapid prototyping and manufacturing resources. 

How has your outlook on security changed over the last year? What security strategies do you anticipate leveraging in 2019?

In our IoT product designs we very selective about the components we utilize and the middleware and cloud applications that we integrate these devices too. Due to our focus on the “Things” in IoT we pay very close attention to the wireless communication modules (and sometimes wired communication modules) that we put into products. We expect these communication modules to have encryption/decryption libraries, allowance for public/private key share, and OTA capabilities, at minimum. Now that it is 2019, we don’t accept and will not use IoT components/solutions in products that haven’t put attention into this area.

Are you active in the Healthcare, LPWAN, Smart City, and/or Industrial IoT verticals? How so? Which are most exciting for you?

Breadware is active in all of these IoT verticals. Approximately 150 IoT projects a year go through Breadware for concept definition, prototyping, development, or manufacturing of the physical IoT product. The products that go through Breadware wind up in all of these different verticales. As of 2018, Breadware’s split was approximately 70 percent consumer IoT projects and 30 percent industrial IoT.

Are Edge Technologies and IoT mesh networks taking a larger role in your operations and/or product offerings? How so, or why not?

We are seeing mesh networking expand in relevancy in Breadware’s offerings for 2 reasons this year. Reason 1 is that Bluetooth SIG has now released the BLE mesh protocol. As BLE was already near ubiquitous, BLE meshing is opening up many new product and business model opportunities which companies are working to quickly capitalize. Reason 2 is that in the building automation/control space, many organization are upgrading from Zigbee 2.0 to 3 for the added capabilities and security of this newer protocol.

What will you have on display at your booth and why should attendees make it a point to visit you at your booth?

At the Breadware booth you will be able to see several IoT products across the healthcare, smart home, industrial, and LPWAN spaces that Breadware assisted in developing and bringing to market in 2018. In addition you will be able to check out the newly released IoT Product Development Estimator tool from Breadware. Have a new IoT product concept and need some ballpark numbers of the costs in terms of time and dollars to build the product and get it to market? Visit the Breadware booth and try out the IoT Product Development Estimator to have these numbers in 5-10 minutes.

What are you most looking forward to at IoT Evolution 2019?

Walking the exhibit floor, listening to the keynotes, and the networking sessions.