The 10 Coolest IoT Hardware Companies: The 2025 Internet Of Things 50
Here are the 10 coolest and most noteworthy vendors who are innovating and making big moves within the hardware space.
At the center of the IoT ecosystem, hardware vendors are enabling AI capabilities with blazing-fast chips, advanced building analytics with heat-sensing devices and the ability to monitor and track movements with integrated software.
These are among the few ways leading vendors are addressing the vast diversity of needs in the IoT hardware space, where companies are also making a big push to provide the essential software and hardware building blocks for commercial applications.
These vendors—which include building analytics startup Butlr, AI computing giant Nvidia and industrial provider Lantronix—have all made significant developments in the IoT hardware space over the past year, ranging from new products and software integrations to acquisition deals and business alliances.
For the 2025 Internet of Things 50, CRN picked these and other companies it deemed the most noteworthy vendors within the hardware space. What follows are descriptions of each company, which also includes Digi International, Everactive, Intel, Qualcomm, Raspberry Pi, SiMa.ai and Zebra Technologies.
Butlr
Honghao Deng
Co-Founder, CEO
Butlr is using AI and heat-sensing technology to help organizations make buildings more collaborative, more energy-efficient and safer by anonymously tracking how people interact in physical spaces. The Burlingame, Calif.-based startup in January said it had reached a business alliance agreement with the venture capital fund of Japanese tech giant Ricoh.
Digi International
Ron Konezny
President, CEO
Digi International is helping companies build cutting-edge connected products with its portfolio of IoT connectivity products and services. In January, the Minneapolis-based company unveiled the launch of Digi X-ON, which it called a “breakthrough edge-to-cloud offering that provides the components needed for IoT systems from one trusted and reliable supplier.”
Everactive
Benton Calhoun
CEO
Everactive is helping companies “maximize their industrial IoT investments” with its battery-free, wireless sensors that can stay on indefinitely. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said in February that it had sold its industrial monitoring services division to Shoplogix, a developer of smart factory software.
Intel
Lip-Bu Tan
CEO
Intel is bringing a systems mindset and vertical focus with its broad portfolio of edge processors for a variety of IoT applications. In January, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company unveiled a variety of new AI-optimized processors for environments with different performance, power, cost and supply requirements, ranging from the NPU-equipped Core Ultra 200 series to the low-power N-series.
Lantronix
Saleel Awsare
President, CEO
Lantronix is enabling the next wave of industrial IoT offerings with its diverse portfolio of computing and connectivity devices as well as sensors, trackers and software. In December, the Irvine, Calif.-based company said that it had closed on its $6.5 million acquisition of assets from the NetComm enterprise IoT business.
Nvidia
Jensen Huang
Founder, President, CEO
Nvidia is seizing on its AI computing prowess to take industrial AI to the next level with products such as Nvidia AI Enterprise-IGX and Nvidia Holocon on the Nvidia IGX platform. Launched in June, these products, when combined, offer an “enterprise-grade platform” for high-performance AI solutions at the edge.
Qualcomm
Cristiano Amon
President, CEO
Qualcomm aims to help businesses develop intelligent edge applications with a comprehensive portfolio of technologies and components tailored to specific industry needs. In January, the San Diego-based company said that its Qualcomm Aware software for adding observability, monitoring and location capabilities to devices will be pre-integrated into select chipsets and third-party hardware.
Raspberry Pi
Eben Upton
CEO
Raspberry Pi is helping businesses develop high-performance, low-cost edge applications with its portfolio of single-board and modular computers. In November, the Cambridge, U.K.-based company unveiled the launch of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, which combines a quad-core Arm CPU, a GPU and support for up to 64 GB of MLC eMMC non-volatile memory, among other things.
SiMa.ai
Krishna Rangasayee
Founder, CEO
SiMa.ai seeks to bring generative AI applications to the edge with powerful and efficient chips that it says can handle a variety of modalities. The San Jose, Calif.-based company in September said that its upcoming MLSoC Modalix chips will support large language models and other kinds of AI workloads at 10 times greater performance per watt than alternatives.
Zebra Technologies
Bill Burns
CEO
Zebra Technologies equips businesses in a wide range of industries with IoT offerings that provide real-time insight and enable better decision-making. In January, the Lincolnshire, Ill.-based company revealed the Zebra Mobile Computing AI Suite, which is meant to help businesses “easily integrate cutting-edge vision AI capabilities into their mobile applications.”
