5 Companies That Will Dominate Consumer IoT MarketGoogle doesn’t host many events—there’s no quarterly launch cycle, like there is with Apple, or the scattershot “Hey we have a new phone!” approach from LG or Samsung.The star of Google I/O is likely to be the company’s Android operating system, especially if it unveils the next version of the software, dubbed Android M.This week at Google I/O, we’re likely to learn more about Brillo, Google’s oddly-named new operating system for low-powered devices that are perfect for a smart home or internet of things setup.
It’s Google I/O time again, the time of year when the internet giant holds its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco, showing off the cool stuff its army of engineers have been working on for the past 12 months. Google wouldn’t let a developers’ conference go to waste without promoting the latest changes to Android, and this year the changes could be significant. It’s the one time a year you can don a silly alien-eared Android cap and your weirdest Android t-shirts while simultaneously sitting in on sessions hosted by the engineers who work on your favorite technology.
The event, which will take place on May 28-29, draws thousands of attendees, all eager to hear from Google’s top brass — CEO Larry Page gave an impassioned and much-discussed talk about the state of the tech industry in 2013 — learn about the latest products, and get their hands on the free swag that Google typically doles out (last year, attendees got two free Android Wear smartwatches). The keynotes are always long, and there’s a significant amount to cover in just two days—which makes sense, because Google is working on everything. And even if you can’t enjoy Google I/O in person, Google makes makes the keynote and many of the sessions available online so you can still be a part of the experience. Google hasn’t said who will be speaking at this year’s event, though it’s a safe bet that senior vice president Sundar Pichai, recently promoted to be Google’s head of products, will be leading the show. The operating system may introduce several features that are now familiar to iPhone users, including one-tap payment and a fingerprint scanner to unlock devices.
Nest devices were so horrifically buggy that one of Google’s own engineers, Brad Fitzpatrick, posted a video of himself ripping malfunctioning Nest fire alarms out of his house, throwing them into an ice chest, and tossing them out his back door. Google also appears to have released an intriguing talking point, first spotted by 9to5 Google, that shows a new emphasis on Android’s business users: “This opens huge new markets for hundreds of millions of devices to workers at small business, deskless workers, logistics and warehousing jobs,” read one item on the conference agenda shortly before it was taken down. Here are some of the announcements we expect from the company onstage at its annual developer’s conference, and a few suggestions for what we really hope to see. Brillo has been an internal project at Google for quite a while — a cursory search of the bug tracker on the Google Code Chromium site shows references to Brillo going back to February.
When Google SVP Sundar Pichai takes the stage, he and a team of executives will talk about browsers, TVs, cars, smartwatches, smartphones, tablets, PCs, instant messaging, email, photos, social networks, calendars, maps, smoke detectors, wearables, video, and likely, a few surprises. M could stand for any dessert — our bet is on Marshmallow, Milk Shake, or Mentos.) Buzzfeed reported it could include a fingerprint unlocking feature, which could allow Android smartphones to match the iPhone capability that allows users to unlock the phone just by putting a finger on a special sensor. This may be the year the “Internet of Things” at last becomes a thing, especially if Google releases a new development platform that could seamlessly connect Android devices to everything but the kitchen sink. The new Android could also provide users with more control over the personal information that individual apps access, enhanced support for voice commands, and built-in support for one-tap mobile payments through a new Android Pay feature, according to press reports.
Brillo designed especially to be lightweight, taking up very little memory, which is perfect for smart home devices that you control via a web interface, like locks, refrigerators, and climate control systems. Google is reportedly working on a new platform codenamed “Brillo” that would enable anything from locks to lightbulbs to garage doors to wirelessly connect to the Internet, offering Android users a new measure of control through their mobile devices. The announcement could steal some thunder from Apple’s highly anticipated launch of HomeKit, a new smart device platform expected to go live with its first compatible products this June. There are also rumblings that Android M will include native fingerprint security abilities, so developers can universally take advantage of phones and tablets with fingerprint readers. The lower memory requirements for devices running the new software would mark a sharp drop from the latest versions of Android, which are primarily aimed at mobile phones with at least 512 megabytes of memory.
The darling of last year’s conference was Google’s startlingly low-tech answer to virtual reality headsets: Cardboard, a corrugated cardboard enclosure for a smartphone, with two eyeholes cut out for viewing virtual reality apps. There’s also Android Pay, which Sundar Pichai hinted at earlier this year at Mobile World Congress, and which we’ve been waiting for since Google purchased SoftCard.
Your fridge, washing machine, car, and even the lights in your bathroom could all be so much better if they were hooked up to a network so they could exchange data and be controlled remotely. Google didn’t announce Android 5.0 was called Lollipop until October, and to signal that it’s still a work in progress, Google will probably stick with codenames again this year.
The Apple Watch may have superseded Google’s release of Android Wear smart watches last summer, so Google may attempt to rejuvenate its wearables line with a few product improvements, including rumors of stronger batteries and smarter fitness tracking sensors. One conference session, spotted by CNET, will hone in on health data generated by Google Fit, an app that rolls up fitness data into one comprehensive dashboard. Throw in a few Chromebooks, and you’ve got a complete ecosystem of dumb gadgets that use Brillo to network with each other, or with servers in the cloud. The Chromecast is great (and we may hear of its sequel at Google I/O), but it seems Google has even bigger plans for Android TV, which aims to bring its vast library of Android-powered games and apps to your living room. I’m just hoping that my Brillo smart home will come with one of those Spot robots made by Boston Dynamics (remember how Google bought them in 2013?).
Google Now is becoming a hub for predictive actions, able to tell you when to leave for your appointment and how much that house for sale across the street costs. Witness the orb-shaped Q streaming media player, unveiled with great fanfare at the same 2012 conference, and then killed before ever landing on store shelves.
Spot can rest by the heater — just use your Android device to start it! — and scare the crap out of anyone who hacks their way into my house by exploiting a security vulnerability in my Brillo locks. But Glass never caught on with the general public and in January, Google halted sales of the consumer version of Glass, noting that it was time for a “strategy reset.” One tantalizing clue can be found in an April filing that Google made with the US Federal Communications Commission. Google also recently bought Timeful, a calendar app that would create a schedule for you based on what you actually need to get done—it’s probably too early for those smarts to really make their way across Google, but we might see some early fruits of the acquisition. The idea seems to be to transform the Android platform into more of a premium, cross-platform gaming experience rather than a reductive one—like the OUYA console, for instance. Generally speaking, Android M sounds like it’s going to be work-focused, as evidenced by an accidentally posted event listing that says “Android M is bringing the power of Android to all kinds of workplaces.” It’s an obvious move for Android, which needs to invade businesses the way the iPhone has.
There’s no doubt we’ll hear more about this during the keynote—and Nvidia’s Shield Android TV console, too, which might really help in this particular initiative. It’s due for release any moment now; we’re secretly hoping that it’s the gadget Google plans to dole out to developers this year to inspire them to make more powerful mobile games. Some noted that the description for accessing the table — users swipe left-to-right and bottom-to-top to access certain information — sounded a lot like the way Glass is used, theorizing that this could be the first sighting of Glass 2.0. Business Insider recently reported that the Glass team now appears to be working on traditional eyewear as well as “other related devices.” So the mystery Bluetooth device could be one of various potential new products created by the Glass team.
We may not see much of an update on it at I/O—I don’t recall that we did last year, either—though there will likely be some heavy developer recruitment at the conference to help build up Google’s future-facing modular smartphone. It’s a simple trick that gave Google a foot in the emerging VR market, which could become increasingly important for gaming, entertainment and even shopping. But with Facebook’s Oculus now set to release its Oculus VR headset in 2016 and Microsoft pushing forward with HoloLens, Google may decide it needs to make a bigger push into virtual reality. Google’s Android Auto had its coming out party at last year’s I/O, with partnership announcements with carmakers and demos showcasing its capabilities. Android Auto currently requires that a driver plug their Android smartphone into the car to access all the features, but Google also wants to embed Android directly into the car.
As one of the few companies with vested interest in end-user computing and cloud computing, Microsoft is logically positioned to exploit the IoT opportunity. The Google I/O calendar has a couple of developer sessions focused on the car, such as “Designing for Driving” and “Getting your app on the road with Android Auto.” The battle for the wrist is now underway, with Apple’s recently released Watch challenging the first crop of smartwatches based on Google’s Android Wear. The Android Wear watches, which began shipping last summer, have not made a huge splash in the market and Apple’s entry into the business means the pressure will be on Google to jumpstart its wearables effort. New hardware partners, better battery life and enhancements to the Google Fit health-tracking software are among the expected improvements, according to some reports. The new service would apparently be separate from Google+, the struggling social network that has until now served as the hub for many of Google’s photo sharing and storage features.
In March, Google’s Bradley Horowitz announced that he was leading Google’s “photos and streams products.” The launch of a standalone photo service will raise more questions about the future of Google+. It’s possible there could be a new Nexus phone or Nexus tablet, though those both seem unlikely—Google just launched a line of cases (with Skrillex!) for the Nexus 6, and both devices are still fairly new. The company claims that it is the first platform to support holographic computing with APIs that enable gaze, gesture, voice, and environmental understanding on an untethered device. HoloLens and Kinect empower developers to build highly sophisticated augmented reality applications that blur the line between inanimate physical objects and holograms. One year, a bunch of Googlers skydived live into the building; another, Larry Page invited us all onto his island where we could experiment with technology.
Developed in association with the Linux Foundation and Intel, Tizen is design to power smartphones, tablets, in-vehicle infotainment devices, smart TVs, smart appliances, smart cameras, and wearable computing. Available in three configurations, the platform comes with a variety of hardware modules, software, and services with connectivity options based on WiFi, Bluetooth, and ZigBee.
Though the company manages the delivery of applications for its Smart TV platform, it doesn’t have all the elements to support the backend infrastructure required for IoT applications. Though there are many companies with the potential of making it big in the consumer IoT market, a few players stand out because of their track record and ability to cover the whole spectrum. Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung are not only the household names in many geographies, but they also have an ecosystem play along with a huge developer community.
Google’s hard at work turning Glass into a real consumer platform, but it can’t make the mistake it made the first time around—over-promising a revolution, and only delivering a compromised developer platform that doesn’t live up to the hype. Leave us a comment, and remember that even if you’re not attending, you can watch along with PCWorld and Greenbot, or at Google’s official portal for the event.