What Are the Biggest Barriers to IoT Adoption Today?

The Internet of Things , or IoT, continues to be a hot topic across a range of industries. Highlighting the benefits of adopting this technology, Fortune Business Insights had estimated that the global IoT marke t will reach $1102.6 billion by 2026.

However,
the industry is facing various barriers in terms of its adoption and
implementation. In this article, we’ll discuss some of the major challenges to
IoT adoption. These include:

Security

IoT
has already become a major security concern and various leading technology
companies and governments across the globe are striving to find the right
solution to this problem. As this technology connects more devices, the risk
for malware increases. Reading news about the hacking of smart fridges, baby
monitors, thermostats and cameras has become a normal phenomenon. One of the
main reasons behind the state of insecurity in IoT is the rate at which each
vendor is trying to roll out new connected devices before their rivals without
paying attention to the security aspect of the product.

Duncan
Jefferies, a London-based technology journalist, said: “There are legitimate
fears about security: in simple terms, the more smart devices and sensors you
connect to the internet, the more potential there is for hackers to find a way
into sensitive systems.”

Data
protection and privacy

Writer
Adam Greenfield says that the use of IoT technology can lead to an invasion of
public space and be used for tracking normative behaviour to gain a financial
advantage.

The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) highlighted that “there is simply no
way to forecast how these immense powers – disproportionately accumulating in
the hands of corporations seeking financial advantage and governments craving
ever more control – will be used. Chances are big data and the Internet of Things
will make it harder for us to control our own lives, as we grow increasingly
transparent to powerful corporations and government institutions that are
becoming more opaque to us.”

Safety

It
should also be noted IoT systems, like many others, are vulnerable to device or
communication failures, buggy apps or unforeseen bad app interactions. These
vulnerabilities can result in dangerous and unsafe physical events, such as a
malware instructing the device to “open the entrance door when there is
nobody at home”.

Lack
of clear value propositions and interoperability

Industry experts say that while many companies find
the potential of IoT very appealing, they either lack a clear value proposition
for end-users
or interoperability.

Connectivity

Many
companies can also suffer from the inability to...