Most people have heard about the smart fridge that can tell you when you have run out of milk. It’s v aguely useful, but it is infuriating for some of those involved in the embroyic industry that is the “internet of things”.
According to Hugh Knowles, head of innovation at the Internet of Things Academy: “It’s almost an embarrassment that we talk about billions of dollars of opportunity and then, in the next breath, talk about the connected fridge. It’s ludicrous that we don’t have a better narrative than that.”
A host of British companies are trying to find niches where connected devices can produce genuinely useful data. The problem they face is one of “data spectatorship”, where consumers are initially enthusiastic about technology but stop using it when they are overwhelmed with useless information.
Buggy Air, which attaches air quality sensors to prams, is one project that can bring the internet of things to life. Backed by the Internet of Things Academy and funded by Bupa, it aims to provide a more accurate picture of urban air quality and to provide parents with more information of the effect that pollution in specific areas is having on their children. Mr Knowles said that general tests of air quality were made at a height of three metres, but pollution was worse at one metre, where most infants travel.
Buggy Air may be a niche product, but it provides insight into how specific data could be more useful than more connected stuff. “We need to think quite clearly about goals and needs,” Mr Knowles said. “When people talk about smart cities, inevitably they end up with smart as the answer. What they should really ask is how to make a liveable city, not just putting sensors on everything for the sake of it.”
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Mathew Holloway, managing director of Q-Bot, is another specialist who believes that a more pragmatic approach is needed. “I’m wary of technology for technology’s sake,” he said. His company has developed robots that can get into spaces under houses or roofs to check for asbestos or whether insulation is needed. “We gather lots of data, but it’s useful.”
Peter Jaco, the founder and chief executive of Puckily, which makes a hockey puck-shaped sensor that can be used to monitor temperature, motion and light, believes that the proliferation of smart devices in the home threatens to mask wider benefits. He pointed to estimates that there would be 500 devices in the home that connected to some sort of network in the future. “It’s overwhelming,” he said.
Mr Jaco said that the aim of his company was to add value to the “moribund” facilities management sector, which suffered from a lack of useful information about the buildings it maintained. “Something goes wrong and someone calls someone who calls someone who says ‘I don’t know, guv’. There’s no knowledge base,” he said.
Chris Green, designer in residence at the Design Museum, has unveiled a project to turn the roofs of tower blocks into urban farms tended to by drones. This robotic version of The Good Lifefits the grandiose ambition of a “smart city” while also addressing the needs of an urban population.
Drone technology is another part of the “internet of things” food chain. It even has been the subject of an exhibition in the Victoria & Albert Museum, where Superflux’s Drone Aviary imagined a series of uses — including surveillance, traffic control and media models — that could populate a future cityscape.
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“We’re all beta testers now,” Mr Green said of the vast array of IoT start-ups being launched.