As 2018 draws to a close, here’s a look back at the topics that drove the most interest and excitement here on our blog—and a window into what’s coming for this technology in the near future.
This blog post was authored by Peter Cooper, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft IoT.
Back in April, we announced our intention to invest $5 billion in the Internet of Things (IoT) over the next five years. The importance of this commitment has become even clearer since, as technology has already evolved, customers have innovated, and possibilities have grown. As 2018 draws to a close, here’s a look back at the topics that drove the most interest and excitement here on our blog—and a window into what’s coming for this technology in the near future.
The spaces around us are coming alive with the power of data. In our post, “ Smart buildings, built on Azure IoT,” we talked about how IoT and AI are helping those who own, manage, and use buildings increase efficiency to reduce cost and improve productivity. With announcements of products such as Azure Sphere and Azure Digital Twins, we empowered our partners and customers to explore new possibilities for managing and improving the built environment responsively, in real time.
Over the past year, we’ve also seen customers expand their vision of what smart spaces can do. Traditionally, these projects were heavily focused on operational aspects of building management such as infrastructure maintenance, water, and power usage. This is still the foundational use case and justification for IoT-enabled buildings, but people are increasingly excited about the transformative capabilities of smart spaces. Customers are exploring how they can use analytics to understand and optimize how people use the spaces they inhabit. Furthermore, they’re designing smart building solutions with the potential to dramatically influence day-to-day productivity and increase positive interactions.
For example, Steelcase showed how they’re creating smart and connected workplaces. As Scott Sadler, Steelcase Smart + Connected manager said, “By embedding technology into the work environment, we are enabling people to tell organizations what spaces are successful and why.
