How IoT Came To Dominate Everyday Life
The internet has transformed nearly every aspect of modern life over the past few decades. Smartphones, laptops and digital communication are everyday essentials, seamlessly woven into how we work, live and stay connected.
Beyond these ubiquitous technologies, the quieter rise of connected devices unfolded. From refrigerators that remind you to restock groceries, video doorbells that enhance home security and industrial robots that fine-tune production lines to modern breakthroughs like self-driving cars and autonomous security robots, the Internet of Things (IoT) is an invisible yet indispensable part of daily life.
Decades of cumulative progress—advances in wireless connectivity, miniaturized sensors, cheaper technology and better computing power—gradually converged to unlock new IoT possibilities and a technology-enhanced future.
For OEMs competing in the connected device market, an IoT retrospective uncovers patterns in progress that still influence today's challenges, especially concerning securing, managing and updating connected devices at scale.
The Foundations Of IoT: Leveraging Data
The foundation of IoT predates modern commercial offerings. In the late 1960s, ARPANET demonstrated how networked systems could share data. By the 1980s, technologies like radio-frequency identification (RFID) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication enabled devices to exchange data without human input. By 1999, Kevin Ashton, a British technologist at Procter & Gamble, coined the term "Internet of Things" to describe a vision where everyday objects interact digitally.
Early IoT applications took root in logistics and manufacturing. Companies like Walmart used RFID tags to improve inventory tracking, while factories adopted M2M systems to automate operations. Defense industries also explored connected equipment to enhance battlefield awareness, proving the value of connected devices well before IoT became mainstream.
Challenges That Emerged With Mainstream IoT
The 2010s marked IoT's breakout from industrial backrooms into everyday life. Devices like Nest thermostats, Fitbit wearables and voice assistants such as Alexa brought smart technology into homes, fitness and daily routines.
Cloud computing fueled this growth by enabling smaller, cheaper and more powerful devices. It supported everything from car infotainment systems to smart farming, like John Deere's use of IoT sensors to monitor soil and boost crop yields in real time.
However, this rapid ascent came with hurdles.
As more devices came online, the lack of standardization across hardware and communication protocols made interoperability increasingly difficult. Devices from different manufacturers often couldn't communicate effectively, creating fragmented systems and stalling progress. The complexity in the ecosystem increased the cost, time-consumption and failure rate of IoT systems, especially at scale.
At the same time, the proliferation of connected devices created a much larger attack surface. Countless OEMs rushed to launch products, often skipping robust security measures. Major incidents like Stuxnet, the Yahoo data breach and the Mirai botnet highlight vulnerabilities, with data to cyber-physical repercussions. Insecure endpoints, poor management and generally immature cybersecurity practices created an ecosystem ripe with exploitable gaps.
As IoT adoption surged, so did the complexity of managing vast fleets. What worked for pilot deployments quickly became untenable at scale. OEMs faced challenges in onboarding, updating and monitoring thousands of products across varied environments, connectivity and applications. Without centralized visibility and control, device management and security became resource-intensive and error-prone.
Lessons Learned In The Evolution Of IoT
Security remains a significant weakness, exposed by incidents from hacked baby monitors to pipeline ransomware attacks. To bolster security and safety, standards and regulations emerged to force accountability, including compulsory NERC CIP for the North American energy grid and GDPR for EU data privacy. Following suit, the EU Cyber Resilience Act forces manufacturers to manage product security for EU market access.
Security can no longer be an afterthought. Product strategy must encompass secure design, vulnerability monitoring, regular updates and managed decommissioning from the outset. Compliance isn't solely about avoiding penalties but maintaining long-term viability in a connected world.
Many connected products were launched without a clear strategy for long-term support, updates or integration—leading to compatibility issues, downtime and regulatory hurdles. GE's industrial IoT platform, Predix, offers a cautionary tale. Despite strong early adoption, limited integration planning and a lack of scalability ultimately forced GE to downsize its digital division.
Building the product is the beginning, not the destination. Enterprises expect secure, interoperable systems that evolve over time. Failing to plan for ongoing support, updates and ecosystem alignment introduces risks that can derail even the most promising innovations.
Bold visions aren't enough. Projections of IoT transforming sectors like healthcare and urban planning often outpaced real-world readiness.
Companies like Waymo made headlines with self-driving taxis, yet deployment is still limited to a few cities. Complex vetting, regulation and safety challenges slow mass adoption. Events like CES continue to showcase futuristic technology, but the path from demo to mass-market reality remains long, oftentimes measured in decades.
Adding software to hardware transforms the business model. Long-term success requires not just innovation but ongoing support, including updates, maintenance, security and compliance. OEMs must plan for sustainable revenue sources to fund the ongoing costs of software.
The Road Ahead
Billions of new devices are expected to come online. However, adding more devices to the mainstream does not secure the future of IoT if these connections are not also more resilient.
This next wave of growth demands enhanced security, device life cycle management and financial stability to enable continuous support and operability. Products must be reliable while maintaining robust security and privacy protections—regardless of environment, complexity or application.
Ultimately, tech innovation won't purely define the next chapter of IoT. It will hinge on how effectively OEMs manage the device life cycle—from secure design and deployment to ongoing updates, compliance and responsible decommissioning.
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