ZDNet (12/13/13) Colin Barker
The Internet of Things (IoT) will grow into a $300-billion industry by 2020, with increasing numbers of devices containing embedded technology to sense internal states or external environments, according to Gartner. From today's 0.9 billion units, the IoT is expected to rise to 26 billion units by 2020, marking nearly a 30-fold increase. Gartner says this trend will drive $1.9 trillion in global value from sales into an increasingly diverse market. Devices with computing capabilities, such as sensors that monitor traffic, have experienced strong growth in recent years, and Gartner predicts that smart devices are poised to overtake PC and phone growth. Advanced medical devices, factory automation sensors, industrial robotics applications, and sensor motes for greater agricultural yield are among the areas expected to undergo rapid growth in coming years. Component costs by 2020 will drop sufficiently to make connectivity a standard feature, even for processors that cost less than $1, enabling nearly any device to be connected, says Gartner's Peter Middleton. "As product designers dream up ways to exploit the inherent connectivity that will be offered in intelligent products, we expect the variety of devices offered to explode," Middleton says.
The Internet of Things (IoT) will grow into a $300-billion industry by 2020, with increasing numbers of devices containing embedded technology to sense internal states or external environments, according to Gartner. From today's 0.9 billion units, the IoT is expected to rise to 26 billion units by 2020, marking nearly a 30-fold increase. Gartner says this trend will drive $1.9 trillion in global value from sales into an increasingly diverse market. Devices with computing capabilities, such as sensors that monitor traffic, have experienced strong growth in recent years, and Gartner predicts that smart devices are poised to overtake PC and phone growth. Advanced medical devices, factory automation sensors, industrial robotics applications, and sensor motes for greater agricultural yield are among the areas expected to undergo rapid growth in coming years. Component costs by 2020 will drop sufficiently to make connectivity a standard feature, even for processors that cost less than $1, enabling nearly any device to be connected, says Gartner's Peter Middleton. "As product designers dream up ways to exploit the inherent connectivity that will be offered in intelligent products, we expect the variety of devices offered to explode," Middleton says.
