He has several hours left in his working day when his parents call him to let him know that they will soon come to see his new flat. At that moment he remembers that it is his mother's birthday, that he didn't buy her a present and that he left her house in a deplorable condition.
This situation, which could generate stress accompanied by resignation at not being able to do anything about it, is no longer a problem in some countries and for some people. Amazon took advantage of the possibility of extending the internet to any object or device to develop Amazon Key, a service that was launched on 8 November for customers of its Prime service and which leaves access to nothing less than the home in the hands of the firm.
Amazon Key allows access to, for example, a cleaning service while you are away from home and its agents will also be able to leave the products you order at your home. The idea was born out of the frequent thefts of packages left on shoppers' doorsteps. The solution is a kind of kit consisting of a security camera that allows you to see what the person entering your home is doing by unlocking the door with a remotely controlled lock.
This is the Internet of Things (IoT). The concept is that of 'connected things', i.e. electronic devices that send and receive information over the internet.
For Movistar Uruguay's marketing manager, Fernando Leis, talking about IoT is not just about "a technical issue" but about how to improve the lives of people, cities and companies. "It synthesises hardware and software that ends up solving a problem," said Leis in conversation with Café & Negocios.
Amazon's is one of the most recent examples of its application in a business that has found an opportunity in the hours when people are not at home. The case was mentioned several times during the IoT Day event organised by Movistar. "It's brilliant how something that seemed to have no solution seems to be so simple. The solution was in not being there," said Juan Manuel Aguilar, IoT Business Development Manager at Telefónica Hispanoamérica. According to Aguilar, in IoT it is important to focus on what has to do with a concrete and real need. It is estimated that this year there are 9 billion connected devices.
Aguilar noted that at Telefónica, the Internet of Things push is mostly happening in Latin America.
The company has eight units on the continent driving its growth and more than a thousand professionals focused on IoT in all categories: "We know this is going to grow a lot, so we are strengthening our capabilities.
The Internet of Things goes beyond automation, according to telematics engineer and UM professor Nicolás Sosa, who was a speaker at the Disruptive Tech Day event organised by IEEM and the University of Montevideo. "What it adds is that by having everything connected to the internet, not only can an automatic task be done, but these objects can take actions depending on the state of things at any given moment and other connected devices," he said.
Sosa presented some figures estimated by the consulting firm McKinsey about the size of the Internet of Things industry by 2025, which will be between US$ 4 trillion and US$ 11 trillion.
He further noted that IT and operational technologies were once thought of as worlds apart. "In the last decade, IT networks have managed to address the needs of the more operational world and connect all things to the internet," he said.
Opportunities in Uruguay
The area where this technology has found the most customers, according to Sosa, has been Business to Business (B2B). There, "industry has been the star" because, according to Sosa, there is a clear possibility to reduce costs and be more productive.
Agriculture is another of the segments with potential for the application of the Internet of Things in Uruguay. Telefónica's Research and Development area, together with the Faculty of Agronomy and the support of ANII, is carrying out a pilot plan with the company Frutisur. It is an irrigation recommendation system for optimum performance. "The important thing is not whether or not I have water for the plants. Where there is good water management, instead of taking five years to bear fruit, it takes three," said the Chief Architect at Telefonica R&D Chile, Pablo García.
IBM, Microsoft and Amazon have IoT platforms specifically designed to handle device data. Several experts agreed that the technology is "already mature" and is advancing exponentially.
For the CTO at Genexus, Gastón Milano, it is necessary "for business people to enter the world of IoT", to think of new models. He gave the example of a company that sells washing machines; thanks to sensors that can detect how many washes are done, it could change its business to give the washing machine for free and charge according to the use that is made of it. For Milano, the technology is there but "what is lacking is people with ideas".
"In that architecture we have an opportunity for programmers, network providers. We need that ecosystem," he said.
Genexus works together with Microsoft and IBM in the development of the technology and it is in this way, cooperating with each other and in a transparent way that experts recommend to start working on providing such solutions.
For his part, the director of Technology Strategy at Microsoft Latin America, Héctor Saldaña, said that in that company there are offers of this solution that are "ready to consume", with the intention of simplifying the complexity behind the technology. "Of all the cases we have, what is used the most, we package it and leave it ready to consume," he added. He explained that in the case of sensors, the application is simpler than if the aim is to transform an industrial process.
Another field with opportunities in IoT implementation is retail. In Uruguay, Leis said they have smart devices in Movistar stores that measure how many people enter, what age range and where they moved, which then helps determine where it is more attractive to place certain products. This is a solution that is available and could well be applied to any type of shop in Uruguay.
He added that companies do not come to him asking for IoT, but are looking to solve a particular problem. In fashion, recalled Memory CEO Roni Lieberman, they are already starting to use virtual fitting rooms. Mobile invoicing is another example of the application of the Internet of Things in Uruguay.
No selfishness
The Internet of Things is a broad ecosystem, and for that reason several experts were quick to point out the importance of working collaboratively, without selfishness and with transparency in order to move forward. "We need companies to work in an open way, showing their products to integrate everything in the ecosystem," said Sosa. For his part, Telefónica's Aguilar stressed that the solid position they have achieved in IoT is achieved by working with partners and, at this point, it is important to choose someone with experience to help implement these types of solutions.
30 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. Of these, 60% will be through IoT systems.
Source: The Observer
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