Did you know that the IoT device market is expected to reach $1.3 trillion by 2026?
IoT devices are making their way into almost every area of our lives, from our offices to our kitchens.
If you are looking to get your technology out there as an IoT device, what do you need to know? How can you ensure the success of your IoT project?
Why not read on to learn the key stepping stones that will help your project get the results you want?
- Understand the Basic Technologies Behind IoT
Whether you are a programmer, and business manager, or developer, it pays to start by understanding the big picture surrounding your organization’s IoT projects.
Why not take some time to learn about the connections between the various technologies involved? How do IoT (Internet of Things) devices gather information? What service will the device provide? What language is employed in developments? For example, why use Linux vs. RTOS?
All of these questions can help you to grasp the big picture. Putting each piece of the jigsaw at the right time in the right place will help ensure the success of your project.
- What is the Purpose of Your Device?
When considering the range of IoT project ideas that you could choose from, it is important to consider which will contribute to your overall business plan.
IoT devices are very much 2-way mirrors. They provide a legitimate and often crucial service to the user. This may involve time-saving, health monitoring, or other needed support.
However, IoT devices are constantly gathering information that you can deploy in later devices or updates.
When considering the purpose of your project, consider how it will meet both customer expectations and provide data that will support your overall business plan.
- Regulatory Compliance
Now that we have established the design and purpose of the device, we need to ensure that it is compliant with established standards.
IoT devices frequently work in cooperation with a smart device or allow users to directly control it from a smartphone or tablet. These are often embedded IoT projects. To able to do this, the IoT device and software will need to meet both IoT industry and mobile applications standards.
An example of this is the MFI certification. This is the standard set by Apple for all applications used on their devices.
Research regarding compliance is a crucial step that should be performed early on to ensure the frictionless rollout of the device across operating systems.
- Mobile App
After successful research regarding compliance across operating systems, you can begin mobile application development in earnest.
What are some of the challenges that organizations face when developing mobile applications?
Power Management
A crucial part of IoT technology is the ability to communicate information often in large quantities. However, the large-scale movement of data is a major source of power loss in mobile devices. Developers have to balance the transfer of information with current battery capabilities.
Stable Data Transfer
The nature of mobile devices is that they are constantly on the move and connecting to different networks, whether phone data or WiFi. Large amounts of data being transferred can lead to constant interruptions.
Both the IoT device, mobile devices, and any other infrastructure will need the ability to manage these interruptions, corrupted packages, and irregular communications.
While these are no longer considered serious issues, they are essential to consider when developing your IoT project mobile application.
- Get Your Backend Right from the Beginning
In view of the complexity of communication between devices, servers, and your IoT product, ensuring that the very foundation, the backend, of your product is sound is a major priority.
The backend is the brain of your IoT device and will manage the processing and storage of often sensitive information.
In order for the IoT device to meet user expectations it will need to be able to efficiently accrue, process, store and deploy information at an incredibly efficient rate. This is especially true if you are employing a natural language UI in your project.
In addition to this, since your first iteration of the product, will be somewhat immature, you will need to ensure that you can improve and scale up the back end as your organization improves.
What do you need to include in your back end to ensure this happens?
- Scalability and future-proofing of hardware performance
- Flexibility of integration with custom hardware or mobile apps
- Integration of third-party systems
- Advanced UI and data visualization
- Ability to increase the complexity of deep learning algorithms
In order to do this with the next 5 years of growth in mind, you will need a complex set of tools. AWS provides a series of data management and device monitoring tools such as Load Balancer that you can employ to do this.
- Accounting
Although your project may start very small, it will not be long before you will need to invest. This could be in technologies or even advertising to ensure that people know about your project.
While the tech side of your IoT project cost may be low, these other expenses soon mount up. You will no doubt have a monetizing strategy in the long term, however, you should ensure that you balance the books from the beginning.
Managing your accounts using professional software helps to control your spending and also look for areas when you can redirect finances.
Everything You Need to Know Before Starting an IoT Project and Much More
Internet of things devices are the future for almost everyone on the planet. If your organization is looking to get in early and ensure your products are part of this revolution, then project planning is crucial.
By applying the steps we have discussed today, you can be sure that your IoT project will bring you the results you want.
If you want to learn more, we have plenty more for you on our blog page. Why not head over and take a look?
