Kipp Bradford
The Industrial Internet of Things
The opportunity no one's talking about.
IzoT. You may never have heard of Echelon; for most of us, they are merely a part of the invisible glue that connects modern life. But more than 100 million products — from street lights to gas pumps to HVAC systems — use Echelon technology for connectivity. So, for many electrical engineers, Echelon’s products are a big deal. Thus, when Echelon began touting IzoT as the future of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), it was bound to get some attention.
A few days ago, a company called Echelon caused a stir when it released a new product called Admittedly, the Internet of Things (IoT) is all the buzz right now. Echelon, like everyone else, is trying to capture some of that mindshare for their products. In this case, the product is a proprietary system of chips, protocols, and interfaces for enabling the IoT on industrial devices. But what struck me and my colleagues was how really outdated this approach seems, and how far it misses the point of the emerging IoT. Read more…