Good piece today from Peter Yared, CTO of CBS Interactive, in Venture Beat. Yared’s key point is that smartphones are controlling a greater amount of devices inside–and outside–of the home. He writes, “It is likely that every room of a home will have a 4” or 7” smart device mounted as a control panel for lights, music, and more. Soon, “flipping a light switch” will sound as archaic as “dialing a telephone”.”
Part of what’s making this possible, says Yared, is the underlying technology. From embedded controllers–and we’d count Atmel maXTouch touchscreen controllers in this mix–to easy-to-use, low-cost platforms like Arduino, based on Atmel megaAVR microcontrollers, and Raspberry Pi, these technologies are making it easier and faster to create feature-rich smartphones as well as other touch-based and web-enabled devices. With these robust technologies and a lot of engineering ingenuity, consumers can now bring into their homes unique, smartphone-controlled products, from door locks to home theater systems. The same transformation is happening with today’s vehicles, where manufacturers now have the technology to bring the smartphone experience to drivers.
And this is why so many are calling this the era of The Internet of Things. Before long, according to The Internet of Things proponents, web-enabled devices and products will outnumber people on our planet. More and more of these “machines” will be able to take in data, apply smart analytics and algorithms, and take action, without our intervention.
Have you brought the smartphone experience into your car or home? What types of web-enabled products are most prominent in your life today?
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