Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

But when it comes to smart devices already owned and desired by shoppers, things that control temperature are more likely to be on the minds of consumers, based on a pair of surveys conducted by Creative Channel Services, a unit of the Omnicom Group, for Twice.

One study was a survey of 185 shoppers and the other of an unspecified number of sales associates in multiple retail categories, including big-box national chains, mobile carriers, office supply stores and specialty stores.

Sales associates say there is little activity around connected kitchens but lots of interest in home security devices. Here’s what salespeople say is the first smart-home device customers tend to buy:

59% -- Security

42% -- Thermostat/climate control

29% -- Entertainment controls

24% -- Lighting

3% -- Connected kitchen...

The Internet of Things may be coming to a bar near you.

In the latest twist in IoT gadgetry, the Absout Company’s Malibu brand is introducing ‘Coco-nect’ cups, which send signals to bar staff when a fresh drink is required.

The connected-drinks system uses Wi-Fi and RFID technologies with the coconut-shaped cups.

When a fresh drink is desired, the consumer twists the bottom of the cup, which send a drink order to the bar, including the consumer’s location....

Shoppers are warming to beacons and virtual reality.

The majority of consumers are open to location-based technology as long as it improves their shopping experience, according to a new study.

In the no-surprise department, coupons are viewed as the biggest incentive, based on a survey of 1,400 U.S. consumers focused on shopping habits and emerging retail technology conducted by Walker Sands.

While a third (33%) of consumers aren’t open to beacons or any location-based technology in stores, 67% say in-store tracking could improve their in-store shopping experience.

The US smart home market has yet to take off. Quirky's recent announcement that it was filing chapter 11 bankruptcy — and selling off its smart home business, Wink — highlights this well.

At its current state, we believe the smart home market is stuck in the 'chasm' of the technology adoption curve, in which it is struggling to surpass the early-adopter phase and move to the mass-market phase of adoption.

There are many barriers preventing mass-market smart home adoption: high device prices, limited consumer demand and long device replacement cycles. However, the largest barrier is the technological fragmentation of the smart home ecosystem, in which consumers need multiple networking devices, apps and more to build and run their smart home.

The IoT, or Internet of Things, is burgeoning. While the better known internet is made up of humans communicating with one another, the IoT all but eliminates the human element. Essentially, once it’s all set up, the machines communicate with one another. An IoT in your home, in your city, or at your workplace is actually extremely useful.

In practice, an IoT can automate a lot of tasks and processes. It can make life easier, safer, and much more convenient. There’s currently a whole lot of capital moving around the IoT tech sector, over 800 companies are working on IoT devices and platforms, and new IoT components come on the market on a regular basis

The infographic included here gives you a good visual summary of what’s happening. We made it to show you what types of technology IoT companies are focusing on, how the money is flowing, where the innovation is taking place, and more....

While most folks are ditching their landlines because they now have a phone with them wherever they go, they might make a comeback as a feature in voice assistant speakers, reports The Wall Street Journal.

According to the WSJ’s sources, Google and Amazon are considering adding the ability to make and receive voice calls to the companies’ Home and Echo devices respectively. They’re currently equipped to handle tasks like controlling your lights and smart appliances, streaming music and ordering groceries online. Enabling voice calls would certainly make those voice-activated speakers a lot more useful, and give you another reason to stop carrying your smartphone around the house all the time.

Of course, the big question is, how will calls work? Google already has a bunch of products like Hangouts and Voice for handling voice communication, and syncs your contacts’ numbers across its apps. It also has Duo for video calls and the company said last August that it planned to add support for voice-only chats....

While a lot of behavioral change will come with the Internet of Things, some people are attempting to cause a bit of that change right away.In a push to help shoppers save money, a company has created a programmable handbag with built-in robotics that causes the bag to vibrate, flash and self-lock when the shopper enters a ‘danger spending zone.’

The iBag2 (yes, there was an earlier version, which launched in Australia a while back), is the brainchild of the personal finance website finder.com in the U.K.

The rather high-tech bag was designed by a New York fashion designer and a team of engineers crafted the robotics features....

Nearly 250 years later, in a world defined by technological change, we see the same fears and concerns. As of September 2015, Amazon had 30,000 Kiva robots automating its warehouses, increasing efficiency and reducing the need for pick-and-pack labor. And at the same time, demand for software developers continues to rise, as Marc Andreessen’s famous 2011 statement that “software is eating the world” becomes ever more true.

Over the next decade, we’ll see this pattern play out once more in the nascent Internet of Things (IoT). With an industry defined by “bringing physical things online,” many IoT business models are predicated on improving efficiency by eliminating labor. We see companies connecting garbage cans to the internet to improve the efficiency of deploying waste collectors — which means we’ll need fewer waste collectors. Drones are dramatically reducing the time it takes to survey a plot of land — which means we’ll need fewer surveyors. Every industry that involves electronics or equipment can expect to be disrupted in this way over the next 10 years.

So the same question that was asked in the late 1700s remains: Will this new technology eliminate jobs? No....

Gartner Research predicts that the typical family home will contain as many as 500 networked devices by 2020. Similarly, Ericsson forecasts 50 billion connected “things” by the same date. Reaching these lofty projections over the next four years, however, will require a fundamental reorientation in the way that technologists and product designers work together to create successful “connected” personal devices and home appliance products. This evolution to “Internet of Things (IoT) 2.0” will be difficult for many companies to achieve — not for lack of technological expertise but because they’ll fail to recognize the value of design in connected product development.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity — the forerunner of consumer-focused IoT — has been around for decades. Overwhelmingly, those IoT 1.0 applications pushed technology to address B2B market requirements.

Product design considerations in the IoT 1.0 world are not critical to persuading customers to adopt offerings. Enterprise IoT buyers seldom require great design, because most often the buyer is not the product’s end user. Fleet logistics companies, for example, monitor the condition and location of their vehicles. Their developers focus on meeting operational and environmental requirements, caring little about the physical appearance or user experience of a dashboard- or engine-compartment-mounted device that monitors vehicle data....