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Are Wearables The Next Big Thing in 2014?

 

A new hype appear in town, technology that is wearable. New watches, glasses, wristbands and other sensors will be flooding the market in 2014. With companies such as Fitbit Jawbone, Pebble and Nike+, other startups seem to be flooding the industry with the potentials profit in sights.

Forecasted by Canalys, the wearables market will grow from over 17 million in the beginning of 2014 to over 45 million by 2017. With segmented prices of $70 to $200, wearable will be lading the Internet of Things revolution in 2014. Larger companies such as Apple, LG and Samsung will help with this push by putting out their new watches Nevertheless new iterations of the Fitbit, Withings and Nike+ will make the wearables transform the market of sports, fitness, and health segments this year.

With the emergence of Bluetooth Low Energy (4.0) by Apple and the iBeacons (Android 4.4) most brands can connect their watches with smart phones quite simply. Smartphones seem to be the main controlling device for the IoT market in the future.

The fragmentation of new apps and gadgets will most likely ruin the experience of people trying to connect devices among each other. This is why thethings.iO is preparing the dashboard as a tool to inter-connect all of your gadgets. We are creating a transparent tool to allow people to connect, interact and manage their gadgets, glasses, bands, and watches with a great user experience.

Join thethings.IO to get access at the BETA dashboard and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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thethings.iO at the Mobile World Congress 2014

This was our first time at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. During the MWC in Barcelona our CEO, Marc Pous, visited several events where he was able to show our Internet of things platform which is up and running, ready to connect developers devices.

Marc pitching theThings.IO at the IoT Barcelona

Marc pitching theThings.IO at the IoT Barcelona

The first event at which Marc showcased thethings.iO was the Internet of Things Barcelona community  party on Sunday the 23rd of February at Pangea Coworking space. This was the first year the Internet of Things Barcelona group has a MWC event. During the event Marc showcased how to connect things from different brands under the same user experience as Intel and HWTreck.

On Monday we visited the Mobile World Congress exposition and we saw a lot of interesting new things. Featured products included the new connected car presented by Tesla Motors at the Telefonica booth and a new watch presented by Samsung.

On Tuesday Marc presented at the 4YFN conference about the future of the Internet of Things and the role of startups in the field. It was a fun session and we had an in depth discussion about the projects of Smart Citizen and Relayr. We also had the chance to speak with Massimo Banzi, one of the founders of Arduino.

Marc pitching theThings.IO at 4YFN

Marc pitching theThings.IO at 4YFN

On Tuesday Marc presented at the 4YFN conference about the future of the Internet of Things and the role of startups in the field. It was a fun session and we had an in depth discussion about the projects of Smart Citizen and Relayr. We also had the chance to speak with Massimo Banzi, one of the founders of Arduino.

Marc Pous and Massimo Banzi at the MWC

Marc Pous and Massimo Banzi at the MWC

On Wednesday, Marc was organizing one of the biggest events at the MWC called Wearable Wednesdays, which talked about wearables and the future of human computer interaction. Great speakers and panel discussions are planned with Sonny Vu (CEO at Misfit Wearables), Laurent Le Pen (CEO at Omate) or Christian Lindholm (CEO at Koru Labs) showing the quality of the event where a lot of new things will be showcased such as Bitcoin payment with Google Glass.

Here testing the Samsung band at the MWC

Here testing the Samsung band at the MWC

In general the Mobile World Congress was awesome for us as we gained the attention from new customers. The BETA is still underway to be launched for our registered members, so make sure to stay tuned and on the lookout .

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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thethings.iO at the X Seedrocket Campus in Madrid

Last week our founder, Marc Paus, was presenting thethings.iO at the X Campus of the SeedRocket. Thethings.iO was one of the nine startups selected among 220 companies that applied for the SeedRocket accelerator program.

 

Marc pitching at the SeedRocket investors during the Demo Day

Marc pitching at the SeedRocket investors during the Demo Day.

Among all the accelerator programs that exist today in Spain, SeedRocket is one of the oldest and best in existence. Made by investors that have their own internet companies, they were the first ones to advise the new entrepreneurs that were attending the SeedRocket Campus.

Although we weren’t able to pass the selection process, it was worth it to attend the event and get a lot of good advise from successful Spanish businesses. However, we didn’t spend all of our time conducting business, we were able to visit Makespace Madrid and the MediaLab Prado.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

 

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Interesting Videos on the Internet of Things

Due to the Gigaom #mobilizeconf, we were able to view some mind blowing things regarding the Internet of Things. Here are some of our favorite videos we have seen to date.

The first video is a panel session at the Gigaom Structure Europe 2013 managed by Alexandra Deschamps from the Good Night Lamp with Alicia Asín from Libelium and Michael Simon from Xively.

The second video is a panel from the conference Gigaom Mobilize. Surj Patel from Smart Mocha managed the panel with Michael Rosenblatt from ATOMS express and Hugo Fiennes from electric imp

Both videos are saying that the Internet of Things will be here sooner then we think and that the pioneers of the devices actually will come from everyday people in their basements instead of a massive corporation.

If you find any interesting video of the Internet of Things let us know and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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Our Experience At The Maker Faire Rome 2013

Entrance of the Maker Faire in Rome

Entrance of the Maker Faire in Rome

We’re proud to say that the Maker Faire Rome was a success! We say this not only because the of quality of the projects showed at the Maker Faire, or  because of the new Arduino (and non-Arduino, such as the Intel Galileo, thanks!) shields presented and the people going to visit the Maker Faire (more than 30.000), but also because we got to meet a lot of interesting people that were interested thethings.iO and the Internet of Things.

Before the presentation at the Maker Faire

Before the presentation at the Maker Faire

Marc’s goal when speaking was to try to give the audience a clear vision of the current situation of the Internet of Things. At the end of the talk, we gave a coupon to Internet of Things developers. There were several questions after the presentation relating to property of data generated by the gadgets.

We had the opportunity to meet Bruce Sterling. author of the book Shaping Things and writer of the Beyond the beyond at WIRED blog.

 

Bruce Sterling with the connected beer of the Oktoberfest of Things

Bruce Sterling with the connected beer of the Oktoberfest of Things

We got to chat with the founders of Arduino, David Cuartielles and Massimo Banzi, about a few of thethings.iO’s projects such as One Seat Away and Oktoberfest of Things, which was shown by Thomas Amberg at the IoT Zurich booth.

We also had the privilege of meeting the Internet of Things Madrid meet up organizers, Sara and César. Their booth consisted of Oblobots,

which are open sourced 3D printed robots’ pieces with a conductive dow that can teach children simple electrical circuits. Children at the Maker Faire were astonished by the Oblobots which were playing and challenging them to make a mega-robot.

Oblobots

Oblobots

A few other interesting groups we had the privilege of meeting were the Cooking Hacks team and Snootlab. The Cooking Hacks team helped us with some questions regarding the next project at the thethings.iO. The Snootlab is a French startup that is building things with technology using Arduino.

We feel very fortunate to have met such amazing and innovative startups, teachers, architects, and makers all who are interested in the future of the Internet of Things. We wish them all the best in their future endeavors.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday weekly blog!

 

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One App For Each Gadget? No Way! This Is Not The Internet of Things We Want

When we envision the future of the Internet of Things, we see this scenario that Apple and Google helped to build with their mobile devices and their application market. We see tons of gadgets and objects connected to the Internet each one (or even brand) managed through their mobile application.

Dozens of IoT mobile apps (Photo by: Gonzalo Baeza)

Dozens of IoT mobile apps (Photo by: Gonzalo Baeza)

Philips Hue and LIFX are both household light bulbs and both are compatible with the analogical light bulbs that we have at home. However, both require the user to download separate apps to control their own device, this doesn’t make any sense.

Philips HUE and LIFX

Philips HUE and LIFX

People love to monitor their health by using scales but now with the invention of wearable trackers such as Fitbit or Nike+ people are able to also monitor their physical activity throughout the day. There are scales such as the Withings scale but this is not compatable with the Fitbit or the Nike+. We feel as if technology should make watching our health more convenient, not more difficult.

Our solution

We believe that the users of these millions of gadgets do not want to use dozens of mobile apps to interact with their devices. We propose a central place where they are able to aggregate, manage and interact in real-time with all of the devices.

We want to provide a platform where all of the Internet of Things in our market are interoperable and end users do not need to deal with different mobile apps.

Stay tunned and  don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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thethings.IO at LeWeb London 2013

It was an incredible honor to present thethings.IO at the startup competition of LeWeb London 2013. Surrounded with 15 other stunning startups, Marc Pous, the founder of thethings.IO made the presentation in front of investors and assistants.

We could not win the competition. It was not our main goal but it was an excellent opportunity to meet people interested on our startup and the new social network of the Internet of Things.

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Selected Semifinalist at the LeWeb London 2013

We are very happy to announce that we have been selected among 16 semifinalists out of over 350 start-ups that presented at the LeWeb London Startup Competition. This is the first times that thethings.iO, the Internet of Things social network, will be presented to the public. Needless to say we are extremely excited for this opportunity and hope to see some familiar faces in the crowd supporting us.

LeWeb Lodon Startup Competition

LeWeb Lodon Startup Competition

If you are in London during the 5th and 6th of June, ping us on twitter @theThingsIO or e-mail. See you in London

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