This article is part of the Key Research Findings from the 2018 DZone Guide to IoT: Harnessing Device Data.

Introduction

For this year's DZone Guide to IoT, we surveyed 522 software professionals on various aspect of the Internet of Things. From this data, we've created an article around the potentially waning popularity of IoT development. 

Losing the Sheen

It’s no doubt that connected Things will continue to gain prominence in the IT landscape as technologies continue to advance. In the consumer world, IoT devices continue to grow in popularity as more and more products come out that use network connectivity to simplify daily tasks like turning on the lights or seeing what’s in the fridge. For developers, though, the idea of IoT is losing the sheen it has had for the past several years, especially regarding its relevance in developers’ organizations. 

Our IoT survey in 2018 showed a 9% drop in respondents who said they are interested in IoT projects within their organization, while IoT interests in other contexts (hobby/personal development, building a startup, consumer or industrial products) remained consistent (variations of 1-3% year over year, within the survey’s margin of error); we also saw a 10% swing in respondents who consider IoT to be currently relevant to their organization (65% yes and 35% no in 2017; 60% yes and 40% no in 2018).

The industry certainly has some impact here: respondents working in software vendor or finance/banking industries were less likely than average to believe IoT is currently relevant to their organization – by 4% and 18%, respectively – representing respective drops of 14% and 11% from respondents within those demographics in 2017. On the other hand, respondents in healthcare/pharmaceutical (10% above average) or telecom/cable/utilities (26% above average) industries were much more likely than average to believe IoT is relevant to their organization, representing respective increases of 5% and 15% from last year’s respondents within those demographics. So while the overall feeling of “relevance” of IoT to many organizations may be decreasing, its benefits in certain use cases seem to be growing more apparent.

Conclusion

If you perform a cursory Google search with the phrase, "Is Iot Dead?" you'll get a plethora of articles from the last few years that say "yes," "no," and "maybe..." In an interesting article from earlier in 2018 by FastCompany, it looks as though IoT is going through growing pains, but finding meaningful adoption from several startups. Taking this in conjunction with our survey data that point to IoT as a popular topic among hobbyists, and you could have the makings of fertile ground for startup and garage-based company innovation. 

This article is part of the Key Research Findings from the 2018 DZone Guide to IoT: Harnessing Device Data.