IOT - Moving from theory to practice. A presentation by Rajeev Jha (Founder - Yuktix Technologies Pvt Ltd) for makers, on how IOT, challenges faced by them when they are moving from the world of theory to the world of implementation.

1. IoT in the Real World: Moving
from Theory to Practice
Rajeev Jha (rjha@yuktix.com)
Yuktix Technologies

2. Why this speaker?
 First question to ask
 Makers space, we also make things
 Sharing learning as a fellow maker. Mostly technical
 That is all, now disclaimers
 Seas will not part, at the same time, don’t crucify me!

3. Agenda
What is IoT and what it entails.
The state of things and challenges for the makers
Solutions? I don’t have prescriptions
You are not going to go home wise
Food for thought is served though!

4. Assumptions
• Audience – Makers, to whom this PPT is
dedicated
• Problem – You want to go beyond the
demos.

5. IoT
• Encompasses everything
• Touted as Fabric of universe, Background
microwave radiation, A field we are all
submerged in

7. A small exercise
• Phone/ Mobile / LED light/ Table Lamp (smart lights/ apps)
• UPS + Router (preventive maintenance, turn on key and router)
• Ceiling Fan (rotate according to Temperature)
• Printer (tell me when you are out of pages, place order with
shop)
• Weight Machine (push my weight on cloud? urggh)
• Jeans + T-Shirt – Glow LED?

9. A small exercise
• Windows / Curtains – automatic opening closing, based on light
• Bowl of Noodle – Tell me if at Okay temperature
• My Kid - ?
• Books ?
• Table/Chairs/ Bookshelf – Virgin IoT markets?

10. Components
• What is it at an abstract level?
• TI website
– Connectivity
– Sensors
– Power
– Security
– cloud

11. IoT challenges (Ti)

12. What would happen
• Everything connected
• sense / control / program
• Embedded decision making, data, analytic
• What I am not able to do now.
• Money? Performance, Utilization,
Convenience

13. Earlier and Now
 GSM/LTE Modem
 Motor Driver
 Security
 Logistics
 Telemetry
 Asset Tracking, RFID, LLRP
 Now => IoT

14. Tag soup is Mind Boggling
Battery powered, solar powered, single phase, 3
phase, 6-phase, Gas turbines, cars, substations,
Clothes, Healthcare, Smart cities / smart Parking/ Agri
Dairy, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, GSM, Tiny OS, Contiki,
RTOS, Arduino, Udoo, Toradex, Ti, ARM-11, ATMEL, 8-
bit, 32-bit, HMI, Android, AES256, SSL, Xively, AWS,..

15. Old Wine

16. New Bottle

17. Lets take a pause
What does this means for the maker?

18. Challenges
 What product to do? Cool != $$$
 So many things, what is my game?
 Marketing and mindshare, Consumer or
 Enterprise – need sales
 Technology, Dependencies and packaging
 Hardware – is very fragmented
 Tools are not there yet.
 It breaks my heart to say this but product may actually
be 10-20% of the story.

19. MBEDOS schedule

20. Challenges
 Easy to do if you are the only user – Think of your
hack scripts. the moment you hand it to someone –
it breaks!
 You need a packaged thing that can be abused.
 For a wider distribution – challenges are different.
You need to reach people, how to do that on
budget?
 Last 10% is what takes 90% of the time.
 Have you done enough research?

21. Deception
 Arduino Board from Element 14 + sensor
Breakout from spark fun + Download Library
from AdaFruit = Awesome Demo!
 Rinse and repeat for other awesome demos
 Why is that deceptive? You are not facing real
life problems. Ask - will it work no matter
what? Noise, distribution, Packaging, water,
sun, rain, remote update…

22. Caveat Maker
Market data is very imp. Your hunch is equally imp. What to
make may be more imp. How to make.
You need domain expertise
Hardware (“Thing”) iterations are hard. Need more money.
The infrastructure is not in place yet. MQTT is not the
answer to the all data communication needs. Hardware is
very Fragmented.

23. The eye saver
Cool gadget
Monitor light
Change color when light not
sufficient. Red, Green, Yellow
Read on app, upload to cloud
Target price 15 USD

24. Business Plan
• India Population = 1,21,00,00,000
• Middle class percentage = 30 %
• Number of families = (1210 x 0.3)/6 M = 60M
• Families with Kids in study group = 20%, 12M
• Market Potential = 12M x 15$ = 180M$
• As modest startup, we will capture 10% = 18M$ =
100 Crore
• Elevator Pitch => Which Mom would want to see
her kids go blind?

25. The Demo
• Lux sensor with Breakout
• Arduino Uno
• Adafruit Library
• Color LED

26. Demo.

27. No Library!!

28. Aside: Hardware Libraries
• Mass market vs. niches
• Don’t reinvent the wheel in 2015? Really? What
If the wheels are not round?
• What is wrong with Adafruit BMP180 example?
• UART without timeout. ARM MBED SD CARD
• Lesson – hardware libraries are not MySQL
database drivers. Audience size is small.
Arduino is ______.

29. Costing for 10 units
• Uno – 15,000
• Sensor mask/Mounting – 4000 + 1000
• Sensors – 3000
• Boxes – 3000
• Bluetooth Breakout – 4,500
• 3000/unit w/o Labor, Marketing etc.
• Not working cost wise …

30. New Plan - Dependencies
• Sensor board masks
• Proto quantities Board Printing
• PCB design, INR 65 NXP 8051 chip
• Sensors , diffusers
• NID/CPD – packaging
• Testing – Lot and lot of it
• Android App development

31. Problems
• MOQ
• Multiple Configurations
• Dependencies dance
• Market data is fuzzy

32. Sensor PCB

33. New Plan
• Go to China? – Tyranny of MOQ would require
another book. Chinese guy also needs design
• Hardware is fragmented and dependencies on
supply chain – need A,B,C,D…
• 8-bit board, Linux board, 7-segment, LCD,
touchscreen, 55 inch, fixing configurations is
hard.
• To do mass market, you need demand,
without demand, you need Good niche.

34. Chip selector

35. What to do?
#1 - We cannot talk about everything. Need to chalk
about a territory, settle on a product based on Hunch/
market data. Find the niche.
#2 – Domain expertise would be needed. Baleno -
OBDII pins, propriety data example. Need domain
experts or use mass-market things for your solution.
#3 – Demo is different from a finished product.
Stabilizing takes time and expertise. Don’t bite what
you can’t chew! Play to your strength.

36. Student GSM driver

37. Student version
• Can’t run unattended and recover from
faults
• Would you take something that works 99%
of time?
• Unit not near you. Reboot is not an option
• Story of a GPRS driver and Airtel DNS
servers

38. Professional?

39. What to do?
#4 - Do some market survey, find demand from
market. If you can get over MOQ trap, first step is
done.
#5 - Find good professionals. Takes money but
saves time.
#6 – Minimize the number of moving parts. See
what can be collected off-the-shelf.

40. Good examples
• 3D printer hardware – based on Arduino
• Open Sprinkler – ATMEGA chip
• Rpi Based Gateway – RFID reader
companion box and Greenhouse.
• More examples?

41. Thank You.
Coffee?
Rajeev Jha (rjha@yuktix.com)
YUKTIX Technologies Private Limited
www.yuktix.com