The Internet of Things (IoT) promises to revolutionize the way people live and work. But while the media’s attention is focused on high-profile Internet of Things firms like NEST, the smart-home products vendor that Google acquired for more than $3 billion last month, much of the innovation in IoT – at least in the consumer market – is a bottom-up, grass roots phenomenon. Quietly, the combination of ready-made components, point and click development environments and cloud based back end management tools has enabled an army of (mostly) novice developers to assemble novel, connected products for a public enraptured with the idea of using their mobile devices to control something — anything. At the same time, crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have created a platform for products to get funded and distributed to hundreds, thousands or even tens of thousands of customers – once a monumental task. That’s great for the […]
