Use Cases for Internet of Things or IoT on Blockchain: Analysis of Three Prototypes

In the previous article we covered a high level overview of blockchain and IoT taken together. In this post, we will take a closer look at three use cases for IoT on the blockchain, through different prototype implementations from three different technology companies.

Two in the list are start-ups Slock.it and Filament while one offering is from technology giant IBM.

An interesting fact is that they all have Samsung in the mix; either as partner or as investor.

Use Case: Fully Autonomous Rentals with Slock.it’s Ethereum Computer

Technology Stack: Ethereum, Ubuntu, Wireless Protocols, Swarm/IPFS for storage

Partners: Samsung, Canonical, RWE, Microsoft

We have covered Slock.it’s DAO in this series, aimed at bringing into production by 2017, a solution called the Ethereum Computer that will allow autonomous rentals on the Ethereum blockchain.

Slock.it envisions a disintermediated rental or sale use case applicable to any object such as accommodation, real estate spaces, smart devices or even spare resources such as wi-fi routers or disk space. Slock.it’s proposition for the Ethereum Computer is to bring blockchain technology into every home by activating a "Universal Sharing Network".

The role of the Ethereum computer is to act as a blockchain hub for IoT enabled devices in the vicinity. A conventional smart home hub such as Samsung’s SmartThings is designed to allow different smart objects to communicate with one another and also, function as a central controller for multiple objects. Smart home hubs are not designed for billing or payments use case.

The Ethereum Computer on the other hand, allows connected devices to communicate with the blockchain and negotiate billing smart contracts. On payment of a digital token fee, the device unlocks for use.

First demonstrated at Ethereum Devcon 1 last November, the company, in partnership with Canonical and Samsung, demonstrated a working prototype of the Ethereum Computer at Mobile World Congress in 2016.

Slock.it’s implementation at MWC consisted of a full Ethereum node on Snappy Ubuntu Core, with the complete Ethereum stack of Homestead, Mist and Whisper protocol integrated with Samsung’s Artik IoT platform. The prototype operated door locks and smart lights which were activated by completing a payment transaction on Ethereum.

Other use cases that Slock.it has described are autonomous self-renting electric vehicles. Slock.it has also partnered with RWE, a German energy company for a solution using Ethereum Computer, that will allow electric vehicles to charge from smart sockets making payments via the Ethereum blockchain. Another more futuristic use case is micro-transactions, where connected vehicles can recharge at a smart traffic light, using an embedded Ethereum Computer hub and Whisper protocol for communication.

Use Case: Machine to Machine Supply Chain for Smart Home with IBM and Samsung’s ADEPT (Autonomous Decentralized Peer-to-Peer Telemetry)

Technology Stack: IBM BlueMix, Telehash, Ethereum, BitTorrent

Partners: Samsung

At CES in January 2015, IBM and Samsung unveiled a proof of concept that demonstrated a decentralized IoT framework called ADEPT, using peer to peer messaging, file sharing (such as device logs and marketing videos) and blockchain. IBM describes the outcome as “device democracy”.

In the ADEPT prototype, three smart home use cases for self-sustaining devices using these protocols were implemented.

A smart washing machine was able to negotiate smart contracts to order detergent refill, place repair service order for a fault part under warranty and also collaborate with other devices on energy usage.

Billing and payment transaction and contract terms were made via Ethereum blockchain, while TeleHash was used for device to device communication and BitTorrent to exchange files such as diagnostic logs and marketing videos.

The value proposition of device democracy is to give security and privacy back in the hands of the user through trustless, peer to peer encrypted transactions between machines with blockchain at the core.

Use Case: Decentralized Industrial IoT networks using Filament’s Distributed Sensor Transactions, or DIST

Technology Stack: Filament Tap, Bitcoin, BitTorrent, TMesh (low power mesh networking), Telehash, JOSE (JSON Object Signing And Encryption contract management protocol)

Investors: Bullpen Capital, Verizon Ventures, Crosslink Capital, Samsung Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Haystack, Working Lab Capital, and Techstars

Filament is an industrial IoT solutions provider that provides drop-in decentralized wireless and radio mesh network technology to connect devices such as low power sensors. Filament has integrated its technology with Bitcoin blockchain and Telehash messaging protocol, with BitTorrent for file sharing. Describing these combined protocols as device independence in their "Declaration of Device Independence" Filament brings data sharing and micro-transactions to industrial IoT. TeleM uses Filament’s stack to create a mesh network of distributed devices on the fly.

At O’Reilly Solid Conference held in June 2015 in San Francisco, the company demonstrated use of their solution by connecting multiple Taps sensors at different locations in the Fort Mason venue. Conference participants could access information such as noise levels and ambient temperature, to identify quiet zones, using Filament’s sensor as a service payments model.

Filament’s Taps work as trans-receivers connecting low power physical assets over short range wireless or over long range radio frequencies upto a distance of 10 miles. The Telehash protocol is used for secure encrypted communication between two endpoints.

Filament uses the Bitcoin blockchain for secure device registration and identification. In addition , Filament has also built pennyback, an over the top application on the Bitcoin blockchain that will be used for micro-transactions for exchange of value, through use cases such as billing and selling data for analytics.

What Is The Meaning Of Internet of Things (IoT) On The Blockchain (IoT+Blockchain)?

What is  "IoT+Blockchain"?

Since 2010, IoT or the Internet of Things was being talked about as the next big thing in digital disruption. Then, along came Bitcoin, a "libertarian experiment", which introduced blockchain to the larger unsuspecting world. Now blockchain technology is also talked about as the next bigger thing. 

Naturally many people have thought hard about the effect of combining IoT with blockchain that is enabling some use cases for IoT applications on the blockchain.

IoT: A Distributed Network of Pervasive Objects

The first series of posts on this blog include a three part starter guide on IoT. To summarize, IoT is a distributed network of pervasive everyday objects which have a digital computing identity and IP address. Devices share and receive information via public or private cloud. IoT applications and data are centralized.By making use of localized wireless technologies and aggregation of data, millions of devices such as sensors can be used for IoT applications from wearables to smart homes, scaling up to smart grids and smart cities. 

Security Concerns are the biggest threat to the growth of IoT

The progress of IoT is hampered by two major challenges – security threats and lack of universal standards. Security and privacy are some of the biggest concerns with consumer data located on a centralized infrastructure.  Hacking or malicious attacks on embedded devices makes the possibility of large scale man made catastrophic attacks a possibility. 

Blockchain: A Decentralized, Disintermediated, Trustless Ledger

The blockchain on the other hand is a decentralized database and exists as many instances of the same version in a peer to peer network over the Internet. The best known blockchains Bitcoin and Ethereum are both public and use cryptography to authenticate and authorize transactions. 

Transactions are confirmed based on a consensus method which adds new blocks which are accepted by all participating nodes. Using the blockchain, trustless peer to peer transactions are possible without the need for a trusted third party which removes the dependency on a central provider or intermediary. 

The (public) blockchain is not only decentralized but it also enables disintermediation. 

Further as the blockchain grows as well as the peer to peer network, security issues such as hacking or malicious attacks to get control over the network reduce exponentially. The Bitcoin blockchain has never been hacked in seven years of operation. 

Blockchain Technology Needs to Improve Transaction Scalability by Several Orders of Magnitude

Blockchain security comes at the cost of transaction throughput. New transactions can be included at block confirmation times which in case of Ethereum is twelve seconds. Lowering the time for consensus can result, among other things, in many side chains, compromising the security of the blockchain. 

Use Cases

By combining smart devices (location/context aware) with the decentralized, disintermediated blockchain, a next level of smart contracts is possible which can enable machine to machine interaction, moreover in a secure model. 

Payments or exchange of value are the most critical smart contracts in the real world. Using IoT application on a blockchain can enable a smart contract that uses a payments use case to control a smart device or vice versa. IBM and Samsung’s proof of concept ADEPT, based on IoT and blockchain technology, had a washing machine make a detergent refill order transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Slock.it on the other hand, have invented the smart lock which opens doors based on rental payment confirmation on Ethereum.

Another variation of the payments use case is to control access to smart vehicle based on owner identity (see our article on provenance). If the vehicle is rented or leased, access will be provided as per terms of the contract which can include time, add-on features and revert control on contract expiry.

The Roadmap for IoT on the Blockchain

IoT applications on the blockchain is relevant to some use cases, although the combined stack will not make sense in every situation. 

The blockchain addresses the security issue. One solution to scalability is private blockchains, which bring in the centralized authority (such as the Ripple Consensus Ledger which moves cross currency transactions in 5 seconds). Trusted intermediary is not a showstopper in many consumer and contract use cases (e.g. buying insurance on a rental). Another option is to bring in the peer to peer blockchain within the participating devices or local blockchain hubs such as the Ethereum Computer from Slock.it.

The eventual architecture is likely to be a hybrid of cloud based device management and peer to peer  smart contracts on the blockchain. 

Slock.it and The DAO

Slock.it's "The DAO" which is in the process of creation through a token stake presale for investors , can launch a new trustless sharing economy powered by digital locks operated through smart contracts on the blockchain. Image Source: Wikimedia Commons, Willh26 (Own Work), CC-BY SA4.0

Introduction

We recently covered the Digix DAO and pre-sale. In this month, another highly anticipated DAO creation via token sale is in progress. “The DAO” launched by Blockchain+IoT start-up Slock.it, has gone live on the Ethereum blockchain on April 30, 2016. 

Slated to run for 28 days with no cap on token, the sale has raised over 1 million ether or $10 million. “The DAO” which is getting created is a yet to be branded Decentralized Autonomous Organization that can be thought of as a decentralized VC to fund blockchain+IoT applications on the (Ethereum) blockchain.

Slock.it

Slock.it is a German “Blockchain+IoT” solutions start-up firm formed in Germany in 2015 by some of Ethereum project team members and IoT technology evangelists, Simon Jentzsch, Christoph Jentzsch and Stephan Tual.  

Slock stands for Smart,Safe and Secure lock, a physical object with digital identity which can be operated via a smart contract on an Ethereum blockchain. Slock.it has a potentially hugely disruptive smart contracts innovation on their hands. The concept of "slocks" can revolutionize the peer to peer sharing economy that has created intermediary tech unicorns such as Uber and AirBnB. 

At the London Ethereum DevCon in November 2015, the Slock.it team demonstrated a proof of concept of a “slock”. 

The solution illustrated a disintermediated rental contract use case by wirelessly opening a digital smart lock upon executing a payment transaction on Ethereum blockchain. The solution works by assigning a digital identity to the lock, a Decentralized app or dapp on mobile that opens the lock and checks for payment on the Ethereum blockchain. We will cover the details of Slock.it’s smart lock solution and their proposed Ethereum Computer offering in another post. 

By successfully combining IoT and Ethereum blockchain stack, Slock.it proved that a decentralized and trustless sharing economy can be made possible in the digital world, applicable to everything from Uber, AirBnB to renting wi-fi routers, unused spaces all through a secure digital covenant. 

DAO Re-visited

One of Ethereum’s early successes are using the concept of DAO as a crowdfunding channel. As we saw in the Digix DAO posts, a Decentralized Autonomous Organization can be created as a smart contract on the blockchain. 

A DAO creates a virtual decentralized business entity that is governed by its owners. DAO’s are not legal entity at present, as there is no legal or regulatory framework on treatment of DAO in the physical world. Ownership in a DAO is represented through DAO specific digital tokens which are like owner equity on the blockchain. 

Tokens represent voting rights which are in proportion to the owner’s stake (in tokens).  Tokens are purchased in exchange for ether. DAO’s are formed through presale of tokens to raise ether funds which are deployed similar to capital investments and operating expenses for the DAO projects. 

Owners use the token rights to vote on project ideas, investment proposals and participate in governance decisions such as hiring or firing management and execution teams. 

Token holders can earn return on investment in two ways. They can trade their tokens in exchange for ether or other cryptocurrencies or fiat or, earn agreed returns from the DAO earnings. 

Slock.it's DAO Framework

The Digix DAO was centered around development of the Digix gold backed asset exchange platform on Ethereum. 

Slock.it’s DAO  is a framework that has taken a completely disintermediated approach. In the words of Stephen Tual, co-founder of Slock.it, a DAO is a disruptive application to crowdfunding channels such as Kickstarter. The Slock.it team donated a complete DAO framework with source code and all, that anyone can use to build a DAO model for their business. From this framework, the Slock.it team has deployed “The DAO” . 

“The DAO” Construct

“The DAO” funds and token owners will form contractual relationships with any third party service provider that have proposals and smart contract applications for blockchain+IoT use cases. Thus ,“The DAO”, in context to the current pre-sale will work as a blockchain+IoT start-up incubator for the benefit of its members. 

Slock.it have submitted their proposal to be hired as contractor to build their blockchain+IoT offering which includes the Ethereum Computer.Another proposal is coming from a firm, Mobotiq for a solution that will enable fully autonomous self renting electric vehicles. 

In DigixDAO, the owners retained 15% ownership and the right to create their proposals. Special badge holders had the right to vet proposals. 

In “The DAO”, Slock.it has added an oversight layer to prevent a 51% malicious attack through curator roles – these are experts in their field (cryptocurrency, Ethereum, IoT technologies) who will perform the role of reviewing proposals and code and curating the contractor list for the benefit of the DAO. Curators can prevent any one actor from gaining control over all or majority of the DAO funds in interest of their proposal. Curators can also be hired or changed based on voting.

“The DAO” Creation

The Slock.it DAO is currently running from April to May 30, 2016. Under “The DAO” tokens for the DAO are available for public purchase on the Ethereum blockchain for a month’s time. 

Unlike Digix DAO, there is no cap on investment. Instead token presale costs will increase in tiered fashion. Investors in the first two weeks will receive 100 DAO tokens for 1 ether. This amount will go up linearly and eventually rise to 1.5 ether for 100 tokens in the last four days. 

Slock.it The DAO token sale progress on the website daohub.org

At the time of writing the DAO has raised, over 1.4 million ether or $13 million USD within 3 days of opening. Given the explosive potential if the technology takes off, many investors have taken an active interest in the DAO. 

Three Social Robots Arriving in 2016: Novelty or Next Level of Home Automation?

Who will be the first to arrive? JIBO, AIDO and BUDDY are scheduled to arrive in April, October and December 2016 respectively, though JIBO has run into delays. All solutions received funding on Indiegogo and have been widely covered in mainstream media.

Introduction

Even as smart technologies proliferate making smarter homes, clothes and appliances the world is still waiting for that one intelligent killer app that takes away the management of this technology. The ideal solution on everyone’s list? A robotic butler.

Although robotics automation has gone better and smart technology become cheaper (the average smart device costs below $500), the perfect robotic butler may still be a decade away.

Meanwhile, there is something (or someone) to fill the gap. Social or personal robots as they are called, have arrived on the scene in last year with prototypes vying for funding and presales. 2016 is when many of them will come into consumer hands and homes.

We profile three of the widely anticipated social robots that were crowdfunded on Indiegogo and arriving in 2016. 

JIBO -The world's first social robot for home

JIBO, a table top social robot. Source: JIBO

First on the list is the popular JIBO, which was in news last week for yet another delay in its widely anticipated launch. 

JIBO, dubbed as the world's first social robot for home, was founded in 2014 by Dr Cynthia Breazeal, a veteran in social robotic designs. Production launched after a presales funding campaign on Indiegogo that has raised over $3.7 million and 4,800 pre-orders at $749 apiece. New orders are currently on a waitlist.  

Standing at 11 inches, JIBO’s has a cute animated face sitting atop a 6-inch base. JIBO is not mobile, but can swivel around its base in response to its 3600 sound localization sensors. JIBO’s in-built hardware includes high resolution cameras, 3D microphones and speakers for facial recognition, voice recognition, taking pictures and videos and notifications such as reminders and alerts. 

Voice assistant capabilities like Siri or Google Now are delivered through natural language processing for speech to text/speech conversion. JIBO also has artificial intelligence algorithms that progressively learn and adapt individual user preferences.

Processing capabilities are delivered through a high end mobile ARM processor. JIBO connects to the Internet using wifi and Bluetooth for communication with other mobile devices and other JIBO’s as well. 

JIBO also includes a developer SDK that includes a Visual Simulator and animation, timeline and behaviour tools to develop add on applications that will be available via a dedicated JIBO store.

JIBO technical specs as listed on their Indiegogo project

JIBO is already popular with consumers although the delayed launch this week, means JIBO will lose its first social robot tag and will have to compete with the more sophisticated alternatives that are also arriving this year.

AIDO: Interactive Personal Home Robot

AIDO, the interactive personal assistant. Source: AIDO.

Dubbed an interactive personal home robot, Aido raises the game up several notches from JIBO at roughly the same pre-order price. AIDO includes all capabilities that are bundled in JIBO and some more, making it closer to a robot butler (it actually has a mode called “butler”).

For one, while JIBO is more of a table top companion, AIDO can move. It is a three foot high ball bot with a single ball base for motion and swivel. Unlike the bouncy toy we played with as children, AIDO constantly equilibrates on its base even when stationary, with additional retractable legs to keep it in one place for longer periods.

AIDO also boasts a multimedia HD projector add on, which means it works as a portable entertainment unit cum projector screen for videos in any part of the house.

AIDO's features multimedia projection features Source: AIDO

The robot also supports ZigBee and Z-wave wireless standards which means it can communicate with and control compatible smart home appliances such as lighting systems, climate control and security. Users can program workflows via a mobile app creating a series of time sequenced instructions. 

AIDO packs in some heavy duty computing and innovative architecture to support all its capabilities. There is 3 quad core CPU and GPU processing unit. Its supports connectivity through wifi, Bluetooth, ZigBee and Z-Wave protocols, plus a Universal Infra Red remote that supports over 1000 devices. It has 4D gravity sensor, 6 microphone array, indoor object recognition, touch screen, multiple cameras and projector displays. All this makes it good value at the price offered for early birds. If it takes off, AIDO may be worthwhile at twice.  

For developers, AIDO is built on open source hybrid Andriod-Linux architecture and comes with OpenAIDO, an open platform SDK, which includes tools and libraries to build applications. 

JIBO technical specs as listed on their Indiegogo project

Also founded in 2014, AIDO’s design has already received awards wining "GameChanger" of 2016 by T3 magazine. At the time of writing AIDO’s Indiegogo campaign has raised over $370,000 in pre-orders and still has 11 days before it closes. First deliveries are planned in October 2016. If you are among those waiting to get your hands on a ball bot there is still a chance to do so.

In the optimistic world of smart tech, maybe AIDO will do everything that is promised. But even a fraction would still be a major step in the evolution of robot Jeeves cum Jarvis.

BUDDY - The Companion Robot

Rounding up this list is BUDDY from French company Blue Frog Robotics. Dubbed a social companion robot, BUDDY runs on wheels and casters and is available on pre-order price of $699 for the classic edition. Their campaign on Indiegogo raised over $600,000 from backers. Shipments are estimated in December 2016.

BUDDY’s capabilities are similar to AIDO’s. It provides the same range of capabilities from voice assistance, entertainment, smart home appliance management, multimedia projection and social interaction. BUDDY also lists two additional functions. It serves as home security unit, actively patrolling the house and sending alerts on detecting unusual situations. It also provides elder care serving medication reminders, detecting falls or unusual activity. 

It also runs on open source platforms, using Arduino and Unity 3D video gaming platform for applications.  Unlike AIDO, BUDDY supports wifi and Bluetooth connectivity only. 

Buddy Tech Specs

The future for Social Robots

Long featured in science fiction, social robots or personal robotic assistance may just become the critical accessory for home automation. 

2016 may be the entry point for many such products which are currently in the voice assistant/entertainment category. But the technology may not work completely as advertised through. The challenges with natural voice recognition technology, data security and privacy are just some of the concerns about social robots. Like this feature in IEEE Spectrum on JIBO and MIT Technology Review’s experience with Buddy  show that the first robots off the assembly line may still be lacking something.

Maybe the social robots score on cuteness but are not yet the real thing. But this is promising step in a market which is still in early stages. Another space where exciting things are in store. 

Rise of the Smartwatch Market: The New Best Sellers in Wearables and Watch industries

The smartwatch market has grown at a triple digit rate between 2013 and 2015

Since 2010 or thereabouts, Apple and Google were widely anticipated (and rumoured) to be in the race to introduce a smartwatch. However, the early leaders in this field were wearable tech start-ups. 

The smartwatch industry registered 3 million unit sales in 2013 when Samsung and Pebble introduced the first generation of smartwatches which paired up with Android and iOS smartphones.

Pebble, the most  successful Kickstarter funded project of its time, in particular, is credited with making the smartwatch popular, pioneering design features such as e-paper display and app support (which have grown to over a 1000). 

In 2013 and 2014 smartwatches were a niche wearable/smart phone accessory segment dominated by Samsung, Pebble and wearable and outdoor sports watch makers. The first wave of smartwatch product lines grew when Google introduced the Android Wear platform for smartwatches and wearables in 2014.  Even as the top ten players changed in 2013 and 2014 as companies entered and exited, the entry of Apple, as was anticipated, overshadows all others.  

At the start of 2016, Apple and Samsung account for 8 out of 10 every 10 smartwatches that are sold.

Apple Watch has a 63% market share of the smartwatch just months after launch in April 2015, toppling Samsung who now have a 16% share. Android Wear smartwatches accounted for 10% of the total smartwatches shipped in 2015.

At the time of writing, Apple has also overtaken Swatch as the highest seller of watches in Q3 2015. 

But consumers continue to favour other smartwatch brands and wrist wearables as well.

With the smartwatch market predicted to grow at 28-30% CAGR and reach USD 60-88 billion by 2020 (based on predictions from IDC, Gartner and Smartwatch group), consumers will have an array of choices and competitive prices offered for smartwatches. 

Smartwatch Marketplace Roundup

The smartwatch market competitors market  can be broken down into three categories based on their offering in this space and core product line.

Market Leaders: Mobile Devices and Smartwatch OEM

This is the space dominated by tech giants Apple, Samsung, Huawei, LG, Lenovo/Motorola, HTC and Google, the last through the Android Wear OS. In the foreseeable future, the smartwatch space will be dominated by the mobile leaders who already have a sizable share of the marketplace and the major use case for smartwatch remains as a smartphone accessory. 

Apple Watch

'The Watch Reimagined' is a tagline for Apple Watch. With features such as Digital Crown, Digital Touch and Force Touch, Apple Watch is the market leader with 63% market share.

Re-imaging the watch and nothing less has been at the heart of Apple’s approach to smartwatches. 

Apple’s strategy of perfecting and intersecting launch with consumer readiness has paid early rewards. Many years in the making, Apple Watch was launched in 2015. It seems to have also helped that the hype surrounding the Apple Watch and the evolving versions of other smartwatches, meant consumers postponed buying decisions until Apple came on the scene. 

Apple Watch combines design aesthetics and a full range of smartwatch capabilities that mirror smartphones and fitness wearable capabilities that match activity trackers and heart rate monitors. Apple has introduced multiple designs from sports watch to a gold luxury edition, marketing the “it’s a watch first” approach followed by the conventional watch industry.

Apple Watch in its first release includes patented innovative features such as Digital Touch, Digital Crown, Force Touch and Taptic Engine, designed for a differentiated user experience. Digital Touch allows Apple Watch users to communicate messages between their watches. Digital Crown is a substitute for mechanical crown of conventional watches, allowing users to return to home screen and scroll display. Force Touch emulates a right mouse click function bringing up additional app controls such as music and calendar, with a slight pressure on the watchface. Taptic Engine is a linear actuator within the watch that notifies wearer with a tap (not a slap) on the wrist.

Apple’s the developer toolkit, WatchKit, was released in 2014 ushering in a wide selection of apps designed for the Apple Watch with its launch. 

Apple is serious about continuing consumer mobile and wearables domination with their technologies, filing numerous patents relating to the watch alone. Apple Watch 2 is anticipated to arrive in March 2016 and have improved communication capabilities, watch faces and other enhancements.

Samsung

Samsung has been an early entrant releasing seven different versions in the Gear family since 2013. The latest version, Gear S2 includes the innovative rotating bezel.

Samsung adopted a strategy of evolution with the marketplace and was an early entrant with the first generation of Galaxy Gear line of watches introduced in 2013 on Android OS. Samsung has continued to introduced new lines and improvements with seven successive generations of the Gear Line introduced on Android Wear and Tizen OS.

Samsung’s successive watch lines have focused on different segments of the wearable and conventional watch markets. Samsung’s Gear Live launched in 2014 built on Android Wear introduced the curved AMOLED display to the smartwatch line and included a built in heart rate monitor and sensor. The latest product on the market the Samsung Gear S2 competes with Apple Watch on design and functions. Built on Tizen OS and featuring the rotating bezel, and in-built health sensors. Gear S2 also provides 3G and 4G connectivity with a SIM card slot for use as a standalone smartphone. The Gear family works with Android and iOS phones and S2 iOS compatibility is expected to roll out in 2016.

Samsung aims to remain a serious competitor to Apple on design, with the rotating bezel feature for menu inputs introduced in the Gear S family in 2015, being widely acknowledged in reviews as an innovative feature and a strong differentiator for the Gear line. Like Apple, Samsung has patented the rotating bezel feature as a smart ring technology. 

Google Android Wear

Google is in the smartwatch space as an OEM. Android Wear powers 10% of the smartwatches sold by consumer technology companies and luxury watch brands. Above: LG Urbance, Moto 360 and TAGHeuer Connected smartwatches running on Android Wear.

Google’s leads the smartwatch marketplace as an OEM. Google’s Android Wear platform is a version of Android OS designed for smartwatches and other wearables inclusive of a developer API. Android Wear enables smartwatch hardware makers with a full range of smartwatch capabilities and support for Android and iOS smartphones. Android Wear powers tech brand watches made by LG, Motorola, Huwei, HTC and ASUS brands and the conventional brand watches made by Swatch, Tag Heuer and Fossil, accounting for an estimated 10% market share in 2015.

Google’s Andriod Wear, like Android, enables users to get accustomed to a familiar interface across different brands. The platform includes the notification functions, Google Now cards and voice command features embedded as well as fitness tracking app Google Fit and integration with Google Play Store. 

Android Wear watch owners have an wide array of apps to choose from Google Play store. Incidentally, watch faces are the most popular app on the platform with free and paid versions provided by developers.

Watchfaces are among the most popular apps for Android Wear smartwatches.

Wearable Tech

FitBit Blaze Smart Fitness Watch, Garmin's vivoactive and Microsoft Band are examples of fitness wearables that also provide smartwatch capabilities.

Early day smartwatches were a wearable accessory which allowed wireless notifications from a smartphone. Pebble is the leading example of a smartwatch core product line which initially paired with iOS and Andriod phone but now runs on its own operating system PebbleOS. 

Pebble smartwatches, the first true smartwatch in the market that was designed for Android and iOS. 

With smartwatch operating platforms supporting fitness sensors as well, smartwatches product lines can easily provide fitness app support. Players in the (wrist) wearable space have responded by introducing their line of smart watches to complement or integrate into their existing product lines.

The strategy followed by leaders in activity and health wearables which dominated the wearables market till 2014 is to retain their core product functions and design while integrating basic smartwatch functions such as notifications and clock face designs. FitBit blaze branded as a smart fitness watch is an example of an activity tracker at heart but which also provides smartwatch functions such as watch faces for all day use and notifications, as well as support for Android, iOS and Windows.

Similarly, Garmin, the leader in outdoor, mapping and sport wearables have introduced their range of smartwatches, vivoactive which are retain their core sports activity and GPS tracker functions while adding smartwatch design and notification functions.  

Conventional Watch Makers

Conventional watch brands such as Fossil Q (left), Vector (center) and Seiko have taken different approaches in their smartwatch product lines, without radically altering watch design features.

The conventional watch industry which is largely driven by luxury brands, sport watches, commodity digital watches and gift economy, have responded to the threat of smartwatches by launching or announcing plans for their own branded product lines.  The watch industry has opted for retaining the design of traditional watches with common smartwatch functions or creating a complimentary smartwatch line. 

Product lines are based on Android Wear or custom software, the latter not a watch OS but embedded software that is compatible with smartphones. Vector and Titan Juxt are examples of this category. Luxury brands such as Tag Heuer’s Connected smartwatch powered by Android Wear have retained the premium pricing of their conventional product line, without compromising the design and reliability features for which they are known.

Brands such as Seiko and Casio had taken an initial position of not building a high level of digital technology into their watches which duplicate smartphone functions, requires building new technology capability and including battery recharging, a feature that may not resonate well with the dominant watch industry user base - people who prefer watches for timekeeping or as a luxury accessory. Leading digital watch maker Casio has since announced plans for a smartwatch in 2015.

The strategy for conventional watch makers is to not cede market share, at least of brand loyals. This strategy may ultimately dilute the positioning of conventional watch industry in the smartwatch space.

Blockchain Applications: An Update on Use Cases and Developments Across Industries

A view of raw blocks from different blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum (top), title deeds (middle) and dictionary definitions of blockchain properties (bottom). Blockchains have applications to real world use cases across different industries dependent on contracts, delivering unbundled services and trusted third party intermediaries.

Introduction

The blockchain tech (protocol to be accurate) is viewed as an emerging technology which is widely anticipated to change how value is transferred using the world wide web. It is considered similar to early days of email communication and later, ecommerce applications. The applications in different industries are only limited by innovative thinking on blockchain applications and use cases. Naturally, start-ups have come up inspired by the design principles of the blockchain demonstrated by cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins.

Bitcoin is of course, the most emphatic validation of a blockchain application. But blockchain is not a technical achievement alone. Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention currently at a $6 billion market cap has demonstrated a technology that has immense significance in an area which is critical for functioning of systems (human, technological, societal, economic and so on). It is the making, securing and enforcing contracts.

At the cost of repetition, let us recap the properties of a blockchain as realized in Bitcoin. A blockchain is a distributed database. It is decentralized. It enables peer to peer transactions. It works in a trustless environment. It uses consensus methods to verify transactions in a peer to peer network. Transaction records are secured and verified using public private key cryptography. The longer and older the blockchain and the larger the network supporting it, the more impervious it is to attack or tampering. 

A blockchain can be implemented by making use of existing Internet infrastructure, technologies and encryption techniques with some innovative rules based programming. It does not require massive investments in timeline or money. The blockchain protocol is now considered as pervasive as http. 

Blockchain Properties and Key Use Cases

If the blockchain uses existing technology, its properties are what makes for the disruptive innovation and promise. This is how blockchain applications are being designed for different industries.

Application 1: Ownership History (Provenance) and Proof of Authenticity 

A blockchain represents an object as a public private key token which is generated from within it. As the blockchain grows, it retains an immutable history of the object right its inception through various events in time.  It can be called a single system of record that can be designed to represent a physical object identifier with characteristics such as state, ownership, behaviour depending on the application context. With a single system of record and held by public private key, a blockchain allows storage of contracts with the proof of ownership belonging to the owner of the private key. 

Another feature of Bitcoin is that ownership is pseudonymous, which also allows for secure records while preserving privacy and confidentiality. For example, in a pseudonymous property record blockchain,  a property owner can retain secure control with their private key over information on how many real estate assets they own and share it at their discretion without a third party (such as bank) having access to the same level of detail. Information required for public or third party verification remains secure on the blockchain structure. 

This has application to almost any area of rights or ownership. Different applications are being developed that enforce provenance (history of ownership) by maintaining the asset as a secure cryptoken on the blockchain from the time of its creation (or manufacture) through its lifetime.

Application 2: Decentralized, Trustless, Smart Contracts

Many blockchain applications can not only function as proof of ownership but go a step further by enforcing contract rules as well. Reclaiming ownership on lease expiry or transferring options in derivatives can be enforced as rules in a blockchain. 

A blockchain is not maintained or controlled by a central trusted authority that defines rules of operation in return for a service. This takes away the requirements of minimum scale and cost which are required to sustain central third party institutions. It also supports peer to peer transactions at lower transaction costs. 

One of the blockchain innovations is the use of smart contracts language which create automated rules for enforcing token values, security and distribution (example Ethereum’s in-built Turing-complete programming language). Transaction fees can be embedded within the blockchain rules. In doing so, transactions are fully automated without manual intervention or interpretation. This not only makes transactions possible over a wide magnitude of values but also at very high speed and scale. For example, bitcoin payments can be made for as less as 1 satoshi (1/100 millionth of a bitcoin) to purchases in millions. 

Blockchain is viewed as threat to intermediary institutions by reducing their bargaining power substantially. This is a pessimistic view, as use cases can be applied to instances where the costs of having a trusted party or intermediary are too high to sustain peer to peer or micro-transactions use cases (see the article on Bitcoin remittances regarding World Bank concerns on high costs of remittances). 

Based on these principles, these are among the first wave of blockchain applications that are being developed or proposed for industries as diverse as financial services, energy and entertainment.  

To keep it simple, we start off with an honourable mention to the pioneering Bitcoin as number one followed by the wave (or tsunami) of cryptocurrency 2.0 start-ups that grew through the crowdsourcing route. Many of them power blockchain applications in the examples that follow.

Payments Industry: Digital Cash

The first and most important the is digital cash use case for micro-payments and cross-currency, cross-border remittances with long settlement times across financial institutions. Bitcoin of course, to which we have devoted an entire series, addresses both issues and has launched the cryptocurrency revolution where the blockchain token of value is the scarcest of commodities – money. As also mentioned, the wave of altcoins that followed suit also have similar applications. 

Finance Industry: Trade and Settlements

Trade and settlements work through intermediary models and trusted third parties such as brokerages and clearing houses. Settlement times are driven by exchange of information and updating of records at each checkpoint, a process which takes days. By using a blockchain, settlement transactions can be made in minutes, upending the speed and scalability of settlements. Ripple, the payments protocol is based on this principle, allowing same day settlements at lower costs. R3 the bank consortia backed blockchain based on Ethereum is also being developed and tested  for trade and transaction settlements.

Financing Industry: Mortgage and Lease

Smart contracts for mortgage and leasing have started arriving, with a prototype of a digital vehicle record on a blockchain now available. Visa, global payments processor and Docusign, a solution provider for esignatures and digital transactions management, unveiled a proof of concept for a car leasing contract that uses the Bitcoin blockchain to assign and manage a unique digital identity for a vehicle and update subsequent related transactions on the blockchain.  

Capital Investment: Crowdfunding

Blockchain applications are not only relatively low on investment but they can fund themselves. The blockchain crypto tokens or coins have applications in many crowdsourcing use cases such as crowdfunding, where users can buy an equity in the platform currency or go one step further and create their own currency and drive crowdfunding for their Kickstarter type projects. Ethereum   and Augur  are among examples of crowdfunded blockchain platforms. Crowdfunding enables users to get a stake with minimal investments and provides an incentive to maintain a large network for a strong blockchain.

Insurance Industry

The insurance industry is almost entirely a system of contracts and a major use case for blockchain. From smart contracts for risk pooling in underwriting to enforcing claim pay outs and preventing fraud, insurance industry is probably only next in line of financial services after banking and finance for block chain applications. 

At the moment, the insurance industry is at the drawing board for the insurance killer app like Bitcoin– a smart contracts blockchain, reinsurance being a promising area. Allianz France, a subsidiary of German insurance giant Allianz, is working with Everledger, a blockchain start-up that certifies diamonds, to explore uses of blockchain as an asset registry. Axa another leading French insurer is also exploring applications for the blockchain and has invested in Blockstream, a Bitcoin platform provider  and pioneer in side chains.  

Energy Industry: Peer to Peer Micro-grids

Consumer energy is distributed through utility company grids. But solar cryptocurrency based start-ups are pioneering the idea of peer of peer solar energy micro-grids using the concept of energy blockchains. TransActive Grid, joint venture between consensus networks start-up LO3 Energy and Consensus Systems has launched a community microgrid project in a New York neighborhood that will enable homeowners and buildings in a neighborhood to buy or sell excess solar energy. The blockchain allows users to charge fees denominated in blockchain fees as well as enforce distribution rules. Transactive Grid’s blockchain is based on Ethereum.  

Entertainment Industry: Music Recording and Distribution

PeerTracks is a peer to peer network that allows musicians to distribute songs directly to fans. Buyers can acquire equity, purchase or stream songs by using the blockchain token. Costs are low as transaction fees are lower than other forms of payments (such as credit card fees). PeerTracks blockchain is called MUSE and is built on the Bitshares platforms. 

In future, music blockchains like PeerTracks can be used to protect artist rights by creating contract token and rules on the blockchain thus preventing piracy or unauthorized distribution without depending on recording companies and DRM technology. 

Luxury Goods Industry: Certificate of Authenticity

The luxury goods counterfeit industry may well be threatened by blockchain applications that can serve as provenance ledgers for high end goods, rare objects, gems and collectibles, in short, anything of premium value. 

Chronicled is a blockchain start-up targeting the premium “original” sneaker market.  Their Provenance blockchain platform provides a secure registry for high end sneaker brands, assigning and tracking smart tags embedded during manufacture on the blockchain, enabling owners to track history for proof of authenticity, using a mobile phone app. Everledger is another start-up focusing on the certification use case maintaining a registry of diamonds to combat theft, fraud and counterfeits. 

Internet of Things (IoT) Applications

In the IoT series, we covered self-actuation, context awareness and secured protocols as critical quality attributes in use cases for IoT solutions. The decentralized, crypto tokened blockchain can implement these attributes, furthermore, in a peer to peer network as opposed to cloud based brokers and middleware, a driving principle behind IoT blockchain applications. 

Filament  is an IoT meets blockchain start-up that provides an ad-hoc wireless infrastructure (branded Tap) through a network of sensors. Sensor data is encoded on the blockchain with private-key crypto hardware, enabling a decentralized peer to peer communications network. IBM, in partnership with Samsung has also created a proof of concept called ADEPT, an IoT transactions blockchain that combines Ethereum blockchain with peer to peer communications and network protocols.

Public and Personal Records on the Blockchain

Several start-ups are focusing on in this space creating applications that will serve citizens and government interests in preserving and securing records. A slew of online voting platforms such as FollowMyVote and BitCongress are making use of blockchain to create immutable voting records. Other start-ups are building applications on platforms such as Factom to build real estate registries and health histories. 

Governments are following suit. The European nation of Estonia,  is one of the leading adopters of blockchain implementing applications for voting in 2015, securing public health records, notarizing services and many others under its e-governance project. 

This is just the beginning. Everyday new start-ups and use cases arrive with applications as diverse as voting applications, health care and academic records on a blockchain. It is like early days of Internet and finding uses for it. In less than four score and twenty years, we are more than halfway towards a sentient web. That may well be a future scenario for blockchain.

Anatomy of an Internet of Things Use Case

Use cases are an effective tool to describe how a solution concept will function to meet a user requirement and produce the desired outcomes. These days, Internet of Things (or IoT) use cases are everywhere, created to describe applications in different domains such as health care, retail, energy, logistics, transportation, cities and so on.

While there are numerous IoT use cases propagated everywhere, one wonders sometimes if various definitions are getting mixed up. When do RFID tracking solution or a personal fitness sensor become an IoT solution? What are the essential requirements of an IoT solution architecture?  And conversely, what user requirements does an IoT solution fulfil?

This article tries to understand the what constitutes an IoT use case.

The poster below is a lengthy use case diagram using Unified Modelling Language (or UML) to illustrate a generic IoT use case. The domain in this example is a smart home.  

For those not familiar with the UML notification, a use case diagram is a visual model used to develop business requirements. The diagram consists of actors (humans, systems) and use cases which are actions taken in response to input from actors. A thorough use case in requirement analysis consists of stakeholders, actions, responses, conditions, extensions (additional steps based on conditions), inclusions and so on.

For purposes of this discussion, the use case diagram is fairly straightforward consisting of actors and high level use cases under scope of an actor. Further this is a so called “happy path”, meaning an ideal world where every actor has a specific role, co-operates with one another, all connections and data are secure, and nothing goes wrong. Like a good use case, the description is non-technical and does not depict any system or technology.

And as a concluding disclaimer, this depiction is a conceptual representation only showing the actors that would need to come together to meet requirements of an IoT solution.  The goal is to understand through a use case model, the scope and boundaries of an IoT application and those of various components involved.  

Moving on to the example, the diagram shows a use case blueprint for a smart home. Instead of a single device, this illustration depicts a group of diverse appliances, which operate on a single home network. These devices are able to interface with a central application or controller that can manage them which is more a typical scenario (there is a proliferation of apps that are trying to solve the basket of remotes problem in consumer IoT by managing many home appliances through a single interface).

As the diagram shows, five actors interact with one another in the solution. The main (in true use case world only actor) is the human end user who installs and operates the solution to meet their specific requirement (dim lights, turn on heating, open doors, make coffee etc.). The other four are discrete constituent systems that deliver separate capabilities. 

Location is a key factor in IoT. The physical pervasive devices have a geo-location and a local network (or home bus) in proximity. The remaining actors – cloud, app and human owner/operator are location agnostic and can be located anywhere and connected via the Internet. 

Let us take a closer look at the different actors and their respective use cases.

Smart Device

The smart device provides the actual function with added intelligence for automation and learning. The device takes action when an input is received (e.g. turn lights on) or triggers an event (such as a door sensor signalling attempt to force entry). 

Next, the device has to report this information. It does so by discovering a local router which can receive and send messages by a short range wireless protocol such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or ZigBee. The smart device is earlier on boarded on the local network and it identifies and establishes a connection. 

An important factor required for meaningful communication is semantics which means there is some object level identification (device signalling it is a light bulb and not a thermostat) and thereby a context to the information sent.  A semantic model comes into play so that the message is given in its correct context e.g. temperature range for a fridge has different meaning from that of a thermostat, so it is important that the source is also known.

Finally, the smart device also listens to and responds to feedback and takes the necessary action (e.g. dim lights, heat on, lock door).

 Local Network 

A short range localized network is used to detect signal and data from multiple devices and route it, similar to an air traffic controller. This can be the home Wi-Fi router, device router or in some cases, if multiple client appliances belong to the same collaborative network (such as the AllJoyn^TM router service), a separate router which connects client devices on a bus and directs information via a single channel. The router then connects to the Internet gateway and connects to the cloud (via wired broadband, wireless 4G LTE etc.).

App

Apps refer to mobile apps installable on different platforms or web applications and can thus be accessed from anywhere. The application or app presents a user interface enabling remote management of connected devices. Apps are used to configure or on board a device and give it its virtual ‘avatar’ on installation. Apps provide a notifications and deliver dashboards on insights, with an underlying design to provide an intuitive and seamless user experience. 

Cloud (or IoT platform in cloud)

The cloud hosts the IoT platform that manages and acts on the digital inputs. The IoT platform in the cloud delivers core computing and storage capabilities. It manages the user accounts and ownership of information and stores data, configuration and preferences. Device information received can be integrated or analyzed with aggregated information from external sources (weather updates, emergency notifications, energy consumption). The cloud platform performs processing and analytics to transform machine communications into actionable and meaningful insights. It then presents this information to different channels such as mobile apps as per user preferences.

End User

The end user is the human actor who is using the connected ecosystem to meet their person(alized) requirements. In this diagram the human role is given a system like interpretation, simply to depict where human interaction/intervention is needed. As shown, a human (possibly a robot butler in the not too distant future) sets-up the various connected components and once this is done, manages everything remotely. 

Of course real life is slightly more complex. 

In Summary

A good approach is to define the use case the way it was intended in UML i.e. to elicit user needs and expectations of how a system would behave. This can be applied to potential requirements for consumers and industry. For example, what are the situations today in healthcare where it would be imperative to get information in real time, over a localized network (e.g. bio-hazard areas)? What kind of analytics can be produced (e.g. traffic patterns based on weather or public events)? Where is location an imperative and where it is not. 

By connecting these requirements, an IoT application should emerge as the solution.