Expert Says IoT Will Give Birth To $19 Trillion Economy

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It’s time for the channel to prepare for the connected world. According to INEX Advisors founder and partner Chris Rezendes, over the next 18 months it will be feasible to turn anything into a connected instrument for the Internet of Things.

’You can put the little sensor in on or near whatever you care about. That could be your dog, that could be a favorite book,’ Rezendes told politicians and local businesspeople at a recent Internet of Things event at the Massachusetts State House.

’Anything you care about can be instrumented for the Internet of Things,’ he said. ’And the data that comes off that sensor will be pushed through some number of clouds and some number of networks and will be delivered to your or to other people, or fed to other machines.’

’That’s the basic gist of the Internet of Things,’ he said.

INEX Advisors operates in Internet of Things-focused consulting and early stage investing. It also runs an IoT Impact Lab, which ’provides testing, proof of concept, and pilot programs in the next generation of Internet of Things-enabling technologies.’

Rezendes said the sheer number of connected devices will ’make what we’ve done with smartphones look manageable, look smallish.’ He predicted users will have five to 10 times as many unattended devices as smartphones.

He also said the economic benefit around those devices will be considerable, predicting the entire ecosystem around IoT to level at about $19 trillion.

The most interesting prediction, however, might be that people will spend less time in front of that glowing blue light: ’If we do it right, we will spend less time looking at screens,’ Rezendes promised.

PUBLISHED MAY 27, 2015