IoT news of the week for Jan. 18, 2019

Bluetooth mesh is maturing, but will commercial lighting adopt it? I am in the middle of a deep dive into Bluetooth’s viability in enterprise and commercial spaces, so when I saw this article I had to look. It talks mostly about the rise of Bluetooth mesh for lighting and compares it to Wi-Fi or Power over Ethernet solutions. I think a ZigBee comparison would have been better, but it still provides good information and perspective. I didn’t know Bluetooth mesh could handle up to 32,000 devices! (Lighted)

GE’s digital ghosts might be an answer to IoT security woes: GE has been working on the concept of digital ghosts for the last two years. The idea is to create a virtual control system that models a real-world control system, and then identify attacks based on anomalies of how machines and devices act. For now, the GE digital ghost program can tell when a sensor is being spoofed, which is an important element in any industrial system. For example, a sensor reporting dry soil could then lead to a sprinkler going off and damaging crops, an actual case that has happened in connected vineyards and led to the destruction of several vines and fines for overwatering. This article explains the concept well and offers some other use cases for thought. (ZDNet)

Project Soli spawns a movement: Project Soli is Google’s use of 60GHz radar to detect gestures on any type of surface. One example Google has used is a couch arm embedded with the technology and how that might act as a remote for your TV by letting you tap or turn imaginary dials on it. Now researchers in Scotland have taken that concept even further. They proposed using the radar to track the identity of an object and the number of objects to provide a new user interface. This could be used to count cards in a card game or track LEGOs or blocks to create new types of games. Also of note in the article is that Google has ironed out interference concerns over 60GHz radar with Qualcomm, which is working on 60GHz Wi-Fi. (Fierce Wireless)

Robots won’t take all of our jobs: I recently filed a story on what remote operators will need to oversee autonomous vehicles, and so was primed to agree with this article about the owners of a hotel staffed by robots replacing the robots with people. It seems there were two issues with the robot staff. One was rapid obsolescence, and the other was that in some cases the robots just didn’t have the dexterity needed to handle hotel guests’ needs. It appears that while robots may take some of our jobs, so far hotel front desk worker or concierge isn’t one of them. (WSJ)

Smart lights “spark joy,” so get some: I swear I will finish with my Kondo kick after this newsletter, but in the meantime, it’s clear I’m sold on connected lights. Specifically, I’m in love with voice control and the ease of scheduling. I’m also looking forward to AI that makes it look as though I’m home even when I’m not by using my connected lights. Yes, some device integrations do support this service, such as Wink’s security option and a link between Philips Hue and Nest. If you don’t believe me when it comes to all of this, check out Ry Crist’s argument for why everyone should jump on the smart light bandwagon. (CNet)

Fossil is selling its smart watch tech to Google: I’m not a huge smart watch lover, mostly because they look too much like tech and not enough like jewelry, but Fossil’s smart watches were an exception to that. Perhaps Google can take not just the tech but an improved design aesthetic. Google plans to pay $40 million for the smart watch IP, and the likely home is an improved Android Wear product. (TechCrunch)

It’s time to see the trees, not just the fields: I’ve been writing about ag tech for a while, and I was excited to see that it’s expanding out from the fields where big crops, like wheat and soybeans, are grown to orchards. SeeTree, an Israeli startup using drones and AI to bring precision agriculture to orchard crops, has raised $11.5 million to bring its first funding round to $15 million. There’s a bit of skepticism around using drones in farming, so I’m eager to see how this startup does. (TechCrunch)

This is a good take on what happened with Predix inside of GE: Not much to say about this, but I enjoyed the inside perspective on what happened with the Predix industrial IoT software division and how unprepared GE was for its own digital transformation while also trying to sell the rest of the industry on the concept. (TechTarget)

Here is an entire article on edge gateways: This feels pretty obvious to me, but I spend all day talking to people about industrial IoT so I’m not in the best position to judge. So if you want to learn about the role of edge gateways, particularly Dell and HPE gateways, read this story. Plus, if a lot of you click through, I’ll take it as a message that I need to write more things that feel really obvious to me. (Network World)

Kevin had some thoughts on CES: Instead of writing up my final day at CES, Kevin shared his thoughts. They were so similar to mine, I figured you guys would rather just have one version of this story. Plus, I had written four CES stories, so it was time for a new voice. (StaceyonIoT)