Tremend @ IoT Fest Bucharest: Insights on building a consumer IoT business

A pervasive message during last weekend’s IoT in Bucharest was that the Internet of Things is booming, while several challenges remain. New technologies are emerging and so are security threats. Connected devices create disruption opportunities in several industries, some of which are still unknown.

We took the opportunity to showcase live demos of our IoT solutions (starring Rainmachine) and prototypes. Furthermore, we shared insights about building an IoT business that drives our engineering approach to IoT software.

Here are some key ideas:

• Building and selling a connected product is a service business, as the sell-and-forget model is replaced by lifetime engagement with customers
• With the right software integration (see Cloudmatix), the connected product creates business opportunities throughout its lifecycle:

1. Manufacture – Add secure elements to authenticate your devices.
2. Sell – Learn the identity of users and keep marketing your product proactively.
3. Provision – Focus on seamless customer experience.
4. Use – Deliver ubiquitous support – in-app, online, social, and on-call.
5. Monetize – Make recurrent user billing easy with subscription plans and remote feature activation
6. Maintain – Proactively search and fix issues with your device fleet

• Software integration can offer answers in a single dashboard: How many things did I sell? Who bought them? Which ones are active? Where are they?
• Similarly, an integrated tool can track the performance of your devices and platform. So you can proactively reach customers before they know they have a problem.
• The usually complicated way of provisioning and setting up connected devices can be simplified to a three-step process: buy, login, and power up.

Facts and figures expressed by other speakers during the event:

On IoT growth:

• A new wave of low battery-wide range of devices is emerging – also called Massive IoT.
• In 2022, out of 29 billion connected devices, 18 billion will be IoT devices.

On IoT security:

• It is hard to make cheap, smart, and secure IoT devices. For the time being you need to pick two.
• If security concerns are not properly addressed, we may be looking at the Internet of Ransomware Things in the following years
• There are a lot of vulnerable smart TVs in use right now. It may be a good idea to have a separate physical switch for your own smart TV.   

On IoT UX:

• Customers don’t usually fill in registration forms. But they love Facebook or Twitter login in their apps.
• Trouble tickets are a source of five-star reviews if you answer them really fast.

At Tremend we have had the experience of developing IoT solutions for telecom, advertising, oil and gas, smart city infrastructure, consumer electronics, and industrial equipment. We are also pioneers in Low-Power, Wide Area Network solutions, with LoRa and NB-IoT technologies. We are currently building CloudMatix, a comprehensive IoT business integration solution. If you are looking for the right tools for bridging connected devices with enterprise solutions, feel free to say hello@tremend.com.

For over 11 years we have developed Internet of Things solutions, e-commerce platforms, enterprise solutions, embedded software, CRM, CMS, ERP integration, and custom software. Over two million users benefit from solutions developed by our team of software engineers.

IoT Fest in Bucharest was organized upon the initiative of IoT creators and supported by Telekom Romania.

https://www.meetup.com/IoT-creators/IoT creators are proudly supported by hub:raum, an innovation hub for early-stage startups created by Deutsche Telekom Group to support innovative businesses in Central and  Eastern  Europe.