5Key Considerations for IoT Devices What kind of IoT devices are more likely to succeed, and what are the key considerations for IoT devices? Today, the editor will give you an inventory of 5key considerations for IoT devices. Form Factor The various form factors of potential IoT devices have an impact on many aspects, including IoT testing. While some devices, such as connected vehicles, are much larger than traditional wireless devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops, many IoT applications require small sensors. For example, wearable devices often offer smaller devices without much antenna and chipset space. Power Consumption While smartphones and tablets are typically charged once a day, IoT devices may not have a readily available power source and often go years without having to replace their batteries. Software or firmware updates for a device can drain its battery, and the amount of communication a device has with the cloud has a direct impact on battery life. If the network is down, will the device continue to poll the network? If so, this will drain the battery, and these are all things that must be considered. One of the biggest challenges for IoT devices is power consumption. RF Design RF design is also related to form factor and power consumption, and it has a special impact in very small form factors. IoT devices may need to be enclosed in plastic housings to ensure robustness to the external environment, which can be a challenge for RF propagation. Additionally, these devices tend to group with other devices, so coexistence must be considered as well as how immune the devices are to interference from other devices, and how effective they are at being good citizens in the network, not emitting false signals. Security Security has become a top concern for IoT, following recent distributed denial of service attacks directed at IoT devices that compromised many popular websites and prompted the recall of some webcams and digital video recorders. While traditional computing assets may have been located on-site, now IoT devices will be located remotely, but still have access to an enterprise or carrier’s network — or connected to a car or home security system. Additionally, low-power, low-data-rate IoT devices can be difficult to patch over the air if issues are discovered, so built-in security must be strong. The security of IoT devices is undoubtedly a major technical challenge for the industry and is related to the success or failure of the development of the IoT industry. The business case Considerations in IoT not only mean technical and security challenges, but also involve the development of how and why enterprises want to utilize connectivity and what they hope to achieve in order to realize a return on investment. The value of IoT is expected to come from the intelligence that can be extracted from the data generated by IoT devices—it may take some time for vertical industries to digest wireless technology at the right pace. Most companies in the IoT space are not actually hardware companies - The real value of IoT is in monetizing intelligence and decisions based on the information provided by these devices, but companies still need to use hardware. Many vertical-specific IoT applications are still being explored in terms of regulatory requirements and best practices. Business models are critical to capturing industry value and creating value. But there must be a strong technology foundation to truly do this.
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