Episode 347: McKinsey reevaluates IoT’s impact

This week’s show has a lot of big numbers starting with $12.6 trillion, which is at the upper end of what McKinsey believes the economic impact from IoT will be by 2030. We cover the latest report, which is a reassessment of McKinsey’s famous 2015 report on the IoT that said it would be worth $11 trillion by 2015. That didn’t quite pan out. We also discuss Qualcomm’s plans for the IoT business to generate $9 billion in revenue by 2024. Still on the chip front, we cover additional delays in the ARM-Nvidia deal before discussing a weird Apple patent, and Apple losing its head of home services. Amazon also has news with brand new, cheap smart light switches for as low as $17.99 and an update for the latest Echo speakers and Echo Dots that lets them detect occupancy using ultrasound. We then talk about a dupe for the Nanoleaf lights available from Yeelight, a Xiaomi company, and Kevin shares his thoughts on a helpful app for HomeKit users that’s worth paying for. Finally, we end by answering a listener question about how to find a HomeKit-compatible method of connecting light strips to a sensor.

The Yeelight panels are dupes for the original Nanoleaf panels, but are half the cost at $97.99. Image courtesy of Yeelight.

Our guest this week is Jen Caltrider, lead on Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included list of creepy and not-so-creepy connected devices and apps. This year’s list was the largest ever with 147 services and devices, and I was actually surprised by how much improvement there has been in some of the security and data practices. Caltrider shares the methodology, particularly egregious devices, and where we seem to be heading on the security and privacy front. We also get advice for consumers that still want to buy these gadgets and recommendations for the companies making them. I was excited to see that list was compelled by a person who loves gadgets as much as I do, but who is still concerned about the impacts poorly secured products or lackluster data policies have on trust.

Host: Stacey Higginbotham and Kevin Tofel
Guest: Jen Caltrider, Mozilla
Sponsors: Twilio and Juniper Networks

  • Okay, so maybe the IoT won’t be worth $11 trillion by 2025
  • Qualcomm is going to invest big in IoT and the edge
  • If you want advanced HomeKit controls, Kevin’s got an app for you
  • The good news is security is getting better but privacy lags behind
  • Local processing is making smart home devices less invasive

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Stacey Higginbotham

I am a journalist who has covered technology for over a decade at publications such as Fortune, PCMag, Gigaom, The Deal and BusinessWeek.