Future of the Internet of Things: IoT trends in 2020-2021

Nowadays a  network of interconnected electronic devices united under the term Internet of Things has been established already. It allows data and info sharing to provide consumers with added convenience and control through certain processes automation. 

At present tens of billions of IoT linked devices operate worldwide and their number is progressively increasing. The virtual assistants, like Alexa and Siri, serve as the bridge between the human users and the existing network of interconnected devices. But IoT goes far beyond consumer devices and serves as a kind of industrial internet already automating factories, connecting cities and urban areas to facilitate their smooth development and interaction.

The future of the internet of things in 2020-2021

The global IoT market is predicted to reach 520 bln USD by 2021, thus it will almost double compared to 2019 and the figure will almost triple to around 1.6 trillion by 2025. 

The anticipated IoT device growth is also 3 times – from 26.66 bln as of 2019 to almost 75,5 bln in 2025. Datacenter and analytics will become the fastest-paced IoT segment, at 50% CAGR, followed by Systems Integration sphere developing at 40% CARG. Even though the enthusiasm of the previous years has been tempered a bit with the fact that IoT solutions may need a longer time for their implementation and getting the ROI significant possibilities are obvious opened now for system integrators, business app developers, IoT industry engineers, and device producers. Let’s look closely at the IoT industry solutions trends to keep pace with the quickly expanding sphere and opportunities revealed.

2020 IoT Trends

The main what should be noted is that cloud service providers are now the most prominent and influential vendors in the IoT space. Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services should be mentioned particularly. The CSPs make the barriers to IoT adoption lower, allow easier implementation of the solutions and simplify trying out new cases of usage and scaling up. Speaking about the consumer and industrial IoT trends the concerns about security, integration, interoperability, and ROI should be alluded to being the main challenges shaping the industry trends in 2020-2021.

Security

It’s the aspect having the most weight. The customers are even ready to pay extra for being sure their security concerns have been addressed. More about security concerns, read below.

Focusing on fewer industries

Narrower focus allows understanding what the users want and require in a particular industry better. Deeper experience in a particular sphere my result in crafting a state-of-art end-to-end solution. More attention to the integration aspect. IoT products incorporation into the business processes is not easy nowadays. It becomes a sensitive barrier to the internet of things solutions spreading. Here we should also refer to the narrower industrial focus mentioned above. Studying a particular industry will allow providing solutions dedicated to it with better integration options. 

Predictive maintenance analysis

Analytics should be involved to help businesses determine more accurately the necessity of optimizations and replacements. The customers should be aware of the expected ROI

Predictions On What’s Ahead

At present, there is a gap between the customers’ interest in IoT use cases, which has grown recently and vendors, who continue to scale up in the markets, where it’s easier and more efficiently. Demand breeds supply. The predictions for the internet of things application and development services are as follows.

1. Consumer IoT trends – Automotive IoT 

here have already been lots of investments poured into IoT solutions for consumer homes, workplaces, and cities. At the same time, the Internet of things application for automobiles has been so to say neglected. However, autonomous vehicles are entering the ground and there’s a large opportunity at play to enter this market. Security concerns should be approached extremely scrutinously here. People entrust their lives to their cars, so no auto should be hacked and not a single person should ever be harmed. 

2. Slower Adoption of New IoT

Just several years ago there were more optimistic forecasts as to the spread and adoption of the IoT devices. Undoubtedly, they are still on the rise, but the practice has shown that the community is not yet ready for the vastly interconnected world of the voice-activated devices and consequently the internet of things market is developing slower than predicted. Many of the voice-driven gadgets need more time for proper development and interconnectivity provision to change the technology and the way of networking. Now the areas related to utilities tracking and health and fitness tracking are expected to experience faster progress. The other spheres have a long way to go.

3. 5G Making IoT Security Worse

As it was mentioned above, security is a matter of great customer concern, but the spread of 5G complicates the situation. On the one hand, technology is going to facilitate the spread of the IoT connected devices. On the other hand, it will widen the threat landscape because the network has its own security issues needed to be handled.

4. Hardware Firewalls Becoming More Prevalent

While there are nowadays more opportunities for start-ups, they can create IoT devices faster and at lower costs, but the security aspect often suffers. Hardware firewalls are likely to become more widespread with the implementation of more internet of things devices and the consumers are likely to be more careful as to their adoption. That’s creating a good field of development for the solutions, which can protect the users from viruses, hacks, phishing scams, and more. 

5. Cybersecurity For Smart Homes

An IoT network within a smart home will definitely require another kind of security level. It will provide a vast ground of service expanding and diversification for home security businesses, the ones which are now dealing with business protection as well as for the specialists creating IoT devices and providing services. 

6. New and More Expansive Security Solutions

Since the time PCs entered our houses, we’ve had the opportunity to experience the unfortunate side of software security lack. Lots of programs have been created to protect the users, however, the new products require new approaches. IoT devices implementation requires not only the IoT apps development to manage them, but also crafting more complex and advanced security solutions.

Conclusion

IoT solutions are going to change our lives in the nearest time already, yet, they set the challenges which are going to be faced and handled. As we can see the security aspect is the most burning issue for the present moment, opening opportunities for companies and specialists from different spheres. When looking for the internet of things application development services we advise to turn to the experts, having enough experience and expertise and eager to guarantee the proper level of security of the solution crafted.