Talk given on May 11th 2015 in Grand Rapids, Michigan & at the ROS in Edinburgh on May 13th 2015.

1. The changing nature of things
The present and a future for connected products
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino
designswarm.com
@iotwatch

2. First UK distributor of
the Arduino in the UK
(2007-2010)
Product & interaction
designer
Consultant & Founder
Good Night Lamp
(2010-now)
About me

3. Some clients

4. London Internet of Things Meetup
Started in 2011 we now have 5.2K members.
Monthly meetups with 3 speakers each & 2 showcase
events a year
iot.london

5. What I want you to remember
We have to stop thinking of hardware as
software we can kick.
We should and can offer a better business
environment for startups to thrive sustainably.
We have to think about what we really want
from our future.

6. This is still early days
The internet of things is about the idea of ubiquitous
connectivity & digital services connected to real
world events.
So we went ahead and tried to connect everything.
We’ve ended up with a mixed bag.

7. What is or isn’t #iot?.

8. Home-made internet of things pie
Remote care & security
Wearables
Insight into the invisible
“Stick the internet on it”
Rebranded M2M &
industrial automation
services
Platforms, tools, incubators
Inventions

9. Remote care & security

10. Things that raise local awareness
Air Quality
Air Quality
Radiation level

11. Things that help us see the invisible
Manufacturing process

12. Stick the internet on it

13. Invention
Little Printer
Narrative
Nabaztag

14. Things that help us make other things: tools

15. Things that help companies understand us better

16. What kind of message does this send out?
Making things is easy & cheap.
Technology just works
You will find a market easily for what you’re
building.
Access to capital is just around the corner.

17. What kind of message does this send out?
Making things is easy & cheap.

18. Making 1 of something is easy and cheap.
Making things is easy & cheap.

19. The design can change radically.
Making things is easy & cheap.

20. Space requirements grow exponentially
Making things is easy & cheap.

21. Capital required increases exponentially.
• 1 good prototype: £5K
• 200 commercial products: £60K
Making things is easy & cheap.

22. What kind of message does this send out?
Making things is easy & cheap.
Technology just works

23. It just doesn’t.
Deploying into the real world is complicated
especially when a real user is involved.
You don’t have a second chance to make a
first impression.

24. Hardware should be hard.
Using up the earth’s resources to make a
potentially frivolous product with no chance to
be useful to its users should be as difficult as
possible.
The manufacturing & design process is not
trivial.

25. Unlike what we would like to think.

26. What kind of message does this send out?
Making things is easy & cheap.
Technology just works
You will find a market easily for what you’re
building.

27. It might take years or not happen at all.

28. What kind of message does this send out?
Making things is easy & cheap.
Technology just works
You will find a market easily for what you’re
building.
Access to capital is just around the corner.

29. Depends where you are.
There are no hardware-only investment funds
in UK & Europe.
Incubators & accelerators are often ways to
educate investors.
Foundry (Fitbit / Makerbot) don’t invest in
early stage startups anymore.

30. What kind of world does it describe?
Ubiquitous technology is good.
Seamless interactions never fail.
People want to design and tweak.
Data is important.

31. When humans are involved, things always get complicated.

32. The politics of fear.

33. Takes plenty of time to build new behaviours

34. But we live in a world of broken relationships with objects

35. Access to cheap credit, mass production in
Asia & mostly free internet services has
lowered consumer expectations around the
price of every day objects.
Connected everyday objects will suffer from
this.
Because we don’t want to pay for it anyway

36. Because we don’t care what happens to it
Expect second hand computers to be
followed by second hand objects which are
still collecting “dead data”.
Expect Dash buttons on Ebay that people
forget to disconnect from their Amazon
account.

37. People solving problems we don’t think we have

38. While creating other problems

39. Plenty of latent relationships

40. Design better, sooner before it ends up being waste.

41. Or shackles.

42. Or more shackles.

43. Product ownership may be dead.
Farmers don’t really own their tractors.
We don’t really own our phones, cars or
homes or furniture.

44. But we still have to live with things.
We love for our homes to be beautiful.
We want our objects to complete our human
experience.
We want our objects to remind us of the past.
We want our objects to reflect who we are.

45. Technologists & designers working hand in hand.
Rethink the MVP.
User-centered design & lo-fi prototyping.
Crowdfunding won’t be necessary.
New collaborations & new ways of seeing IP.

46. Moving away from externalising R&D.

47. And recombine what is already there.

48. Remember!
Hardware is not software we can kick.
We can offer a better business environment for
startups to thrive sustainably.
But we have to know what we really want from
our future.

49. Good luck
Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino
alex@designswarm.com
designswarm.com
@iotwatch