IEEE Spectrum October, 2016 - 13

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prisingly, she found that "those who are
marketing it and those whose bottom line
is somehow impacted by enthusiastic predictions are more likely to make them."
At this point, even the strictest definitions of IoT remain fuzzy because of
breathless hype, including attempts to
anticipate demand for devices that have
yet to be invented or commercialized. But
Stringify's Evans, one of the original IoT
optimists, is confident that entrepreneurs
will find many millions of practical ways
to serve customers through the IoT in due
time. "I think technology needs to solve
real problems, and if it doesn't...[it] will
die on the vine," he says.
As the next 10 billion IoT devices come
online, the industry will face some formidable challenges, such as ensuring
the security of its devices, powering billions of sensors, and handling all the
resulting e-waste. Despite those issues,
Evans isn't bashful about anticipating
connected device ubiquity. "I could see
trillions of connected things, ultimately,"
he says. -a my nor drum

iot in 2020
Analysts' original projections for the number of connected devices by 2020 [solid bars] varied
by many billions. Some have ratcheted down expectations in newer forecasts [striped bars].
Conflicting definitions make it difficult to compare expectations. Some firms count smartphones,
tablets, and laptops, while others (Gartner, International Data Corp.) do not.
50

Ericsson

Gartner

Cisco

International Data Corp.

IHS Markit

Current projections

* Ericsson projections are for 2021.
Billions of devices

involved in the firm's IoT forecasts, says
such projections are intended to create
"market efficiency," by helping companies make smart choices about whether
they should enter a new area and informing venture capitalists as they decide
where to place their investments.
This is why the wild divergence in the
numbers is problematic. But Vernon
Turner, a senior IoT analyst at IDC, says
it's more practical-at least at this stage
of a nascent market-to think of the estimates as a signal, rather than to focus
on the specific numbers.
Bob Heile, standards director for
the Wi-SUN Alliance and chair of the IEEE
802.15 WPAN effort (a working group for
wireless personal area networks), says the
general trend that early IoT analysts predicted has proven true. "What I do know,
because the trend is absolutely undeniable, is more and more things are getting
the ability to communicate and connect
to something else," says Heile.
But why isn't there one plausible set of
numbers? Two reasons: arithmetic and
avarice. To begin their analyses, many
firms collect annual sales data from
manufacturers that produce connected
devices or components such as semiconductors, as well as from companies that
sell and ship those products to customers. Next, the firms subtract a percentage of devices to account for those that
will be replaced or thrown out each year,
and then they add estimates from past
years. The result of this arithmetic is the
"install base," or approximate number of
connected devices in use at a given time.

Some firms include
other variables, such as
industry growth rates
or the amount of money
that companies spend
annually on information
technology. And some
conduct consumer and
business surveys to gauge
how devices are used, so
they'll know how many
of the devices that are
sold and shipped actually wind up connected to the Internet. Morelli at IHS
Markit estimates that 90 percent of communications devices (including smartphones) are switched on, but perhaps only
50 percent of Internet-capable gadgets for
cars are ever connected.
Janna Anderson, an expert in emerging
technologies at Elon University, in North
Carolina, says there is a degree of selfinterest at play in projections, too. In 2013,
she helped the Pew Internet Project survey more than 1,600 experts about what
the IoT might look like in 2025. Not sur-

0
Past and current projections
for 2020

Current estimates
for 2016

NEwS

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum October, 2016