The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the products that will be connected in the future. This includes anything with an on or off switch. Information from our products will be sent to our phone, to our computer and vice-versa. Data about our behavior will be sent directly from the products we use back to the companies we purchase from. The companies we purchase from will send us content directly through the products we buy. These are connected devices and Gartner predicts there will be 21 billion of these connected devices by 2020. IoT will be a big part of our every day lives. It makes sense that in the future technology should enhance the customer experience, finding helpful ways to update, improve, educate, inspire and overall add value to our lives.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you lived in a small town where all the local stores already knew what you wanted and needed before you wanted or needed it? That’s how I see the world of IoT. It’s like you go to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread, and that sends a signal to the butcher where you will buy your turkey. That butcher sends a signal to the produce store where you will get your tomato and lettuce. Let's scratch this idea of you walking around to specialty stores gathering things. Let's imagine someone or some "thing" is doing this for you while you're at work. Perhaps they also pick up some detergent for you while you're out because they get an alert you are low. Or maybe "they" know you like mustard, and there's a sale on a specialty gourmet mustard. "They" ask if you want some. I realize I'm being vague when it comes to "they," but at this point none of us can truly imagine how big and influential IoT will be on our lives. We don't exactly know every form these products will take in every day life. You might be thinking, "Blake, how would 'they' know to buy gourmet mustard that's on sale. Can a product really 'know' a person so well?" It looks like we're moving toward yes. It's likely our products in the future will know us so well they will make decisions for us when we're no there. Think about customer experience and customer service. Would you be mad if a product made decisions about itself when you were not there, for example if it were broken? I would not be mad if my product fixed itself while I was out. I assume you wouldn't be mad either.
When you search for lists of IoT products online you read a lot of seemingly technical jargon about embedded products. But what about products we can easily understand? Products we use now or we could easily imagine using? That is what I sought out to find for this column and here are five easy to understand, tangible examples of IoT.
Here are five examples of easy to understand IoT products that will improve customer experience:
1. Hello Barbie
Image Courtesy: Adweek
When I was writing this column I watched a demo of Mattel's Hello Barbie on YouTube (embedded below).
The woman demoing says, “She’s the first doll that can engage in learning. She plays games, tells jokes, inspires storytelling—and she even listens to the girl’s [assuming it would be a girl consumer] preferences and adapts to those. She has WiFi capability stored in the cloud and we can push data to her [Hello Barbie].” In the demonstration the woman actually talks to Hello Barbie and says “hey look we’re on stage!” Barbie says, “it’s very exciting to be on stage.” The woman demoing her agrees. Later the woman from Mattel asks Barbie what she should be when she grows up and Barbie—remembering this conversation—responds, “Since you like being on stage maybe a dancer or a politician?” Wow, when you read that were you excited or scared?
This can either be a toy and tool for good, or for evil. I would be nervous to leave my own child alone with a pre-programed toy that can think and communicate. But perhaps this can be a force for good. Some say that the technology can be used for interactive learning or even to monitor health issues such as a child with epilepsy.
The key here will also be for Barbie's speech recognition technology vendor ToyTalk and other companies powering this technology to fix the security vulnerabilities before something like this gets hacked.
2. Connected Mascara At L’Oreal
We just heard about dolls that provide feedback back to the company about its customers. What if your make-up did that? What if your make-up gave the company data to improve your experience? This is exactly what L’Oreal is working on. With make-up you can imagine tons of opportunities to provide how-to content to customers. You’re wearing a purple shirt today? Perhaps your eye shadow palette will tell you what colors will complement your look. How about products that remind you the best way to use them? Often IoT is lumped with 3D printing—and the reason for that is if 3D printers can print circuits, it would make it easier to print IoT technology altogether. Manufacturers would be able to create prototypes quickly. Additionally at L’Oreal they are working on a 3D printing product in order to print mass amounts of human skin. That was not a typo. They are in pursuit of the perfect skin prototype so they can test their products on harmless, person-less skin rather than test their products on animals. If you’re like me you would absolutely buy products that didn’t test on animals. I can’t believe we still do that today yuck! Good for you L’Oreal. I look forward to seeing this come to fruition.
3. Product Relationship Marketing On Your Vodka Bottle
If your food could talk to you what would it say? Would it help you cook? Would it provide some tasty pairing ideas for dinner? Or would it just tell you you’ve got a devilish smile and you’re ready for a night on the town? This is precisely what Absolut, the Vodka company, is currently mulling over in pursuit of a bottle that talks to its customers. Their digital innovation manager Markus Wulff said he believes Absolut will become a more service-oriented company because of the Internet of Things. Absolutely! Many companies will follow suit.
4. Lighting The Way To Smarter Cities
While your airplane is landing at night have you ever looked out your window? You are hovering just above the city skyline and you see thousands of lights. This creates a stark contrast to the more rural stretches of earth. Sometimes on these landings I'm reminded of how we waste a lot of electricity and many cities are not making the best use of their resources. But a company called Altiux is trying to change that. Altiux’s real-time plant analytics solution helps manufacturing enterprises reduce operational costs, optimize energy usage and make life better for consumers. No one likes trying to find a parking spot in a dark garage or parking lot. They recently unveiled their portfolio for what they call “smart cities” and part of that is a product that addresses parking lot and light management. Their system can determine where illumination is needed to lower costs and save energy. Any IoT products that improve the efficiency of our cities is much needed. I could see this being used on a very grand scale, can you?
5. Talking Fridge
It’s not going to be long before many of our products actually have screens on them directly. At CES this January Samsung announced its ‘Family Hub’ refrigerator with a 21.5 inch HD LCD resolution screen. This screen allows consumers to use their phone to post content, use a calendar, pin photos and write notes. Additionally they can look inside their fridge at anytime with the help of cameras that are embedded in the fridge itself. Lastly the consumer can use the fridge to do online shopping, manage recipes and compile and compare shopping lists. I can see Samsung getting very creative with the data pushed to the consumer through that screen. Think about the data Samsung could take from those screens about consumer preferences. That would be very valuable for their product insights group.
In conclusion if the most recent “fireplace” of the home was the television, where the family gathered at night to relax together—and now all of our products have screens on them, where is the new “fireplace” of the home?
There are too many exciting new IoT products to list in one column, but these are a few that stood out to me—not only because most of them are consumer friendly—but for their obvious appeal in every day life. What would you add to this list?
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