IoT news of the week for Jan. 29, 2021

Flowserve launches its own predictive maintenance offering: This week, Flowserve, a creator of pumps and motors for the industrial world, launched a homegrown predictive maintenance service called RedRaven that uses custom vibration sensors that communicate via LoRa. The company has spent four years developing its IoT service after seeing startups and partner companies make inroads into the market. The startups typically tried to sell add-on sensors and analytics, while the bigger partners worked with Flowserve, from which they pulled data and integrated it into factory-wide optimization software. But unless they want to become a maker of machines and nothing else, companies are realizing they have to take their own data and build services that they can sell as part of their physical hardware. That’s what RedRaven is for Flowserve. Flowserve worked with PTC to build the data dashboard. I’m currently seeing a lot of companies that make physical goods worry about becoming “just another provider of bent metal” as software becomes more relevant to the operations of physical plants. I also see this fear in companies that make appliances or locks when it comes to the smart home. It’s a legit fear, although I do think there is plenty of innovation to be had in the bent metal department. Admittedly, however, the margins that accrue from that innovation and the cost of R&D associated with it don’t make it as compelling as software. At least not yet. — Stacey Higginbotham

Robots in the shopping aisle: Checkout-free grocery shopping doesn’t have to be limited to Amazon Go-style retail establishments, with cameras spread around the store calculating your bill as you pick up items and put them in your bag. Smart grocery carts could provide a way for stores to retrofit for checkout-free shopping by putting scanners or AI on the carts and keeping a running tally for consumers as they shop. This essay provides a rundown of startups building smart carts and talks about what the grocery store of the future looks like. Note: There will be ads. (The Spoon)

Latch will go public via a SPAC: Latch, a company that provides access control tools for buildings, will go public through a reverse merger with TS Innovation Acquisitions Corp., a SPAC created by New York-based real estate firm Tishman Speyer Properties. Latch makes an access control system for residential apartments that it eventually plans to market to the corporate market as well. For a look at the investment thesis, check out this tweet from one of the investors. I was impressed by the fact that apartments using Latch see a boost of $200 to $500 in revenue per apartment, per year while reducing expenses by $100 to $300. That’s powerful. (WSJ)

ADT employee accessed customers’ cameras: In news that surprises no one who has ever met another human being, it’s come to light that an ADT employee has admitted to accessing customers’ home security cameras to watch them in their homes. And yes, while they had sex. The ADT technician who installed the cameras took notice of women he found attractive and added his email to the list of accounts that would have access to the camera feeds. When ADT discovered that the employee was accessing the accounts it fired him, referred him to prosecutors, and informed its customers. However, this entire breach wouldn’t have happened if ADT had better practices in place to prevent employees from abusing the system. For example, ADT didn’t require two-factor authentication for adding people to and accessing the camera feed account, nor did it send alerts to the account holders when new parties accessed the accounts. This seems like a pretty obvious thing to require, especially for a company that has been in the security industry for decades. With that in mind, be sure to read Kevin’s take on what consumers should look for in cameras and other smart home devices that run the risk of showing everything to outsiders. (Ars Technica, StaceyonIoT)

Check out a COVID-19 dress from the woman who combines fashion and robots: Anouk Wipprecht is a roboticist and designer of connected fashion experiments, among them a spider dress that unfurls its legs when people get too close to it and the so-called Pangolin dress, which changes shape based on the wearer’s brainwaves. You’ve likely seen her work; it pushes the boundaries of 3-D printing, fashion, and DIY robotics. In this video (starting shortly after the 15-minute-mark) she explains a new concept she created in response to fears of people invading her space during the pandemic. The dress uses an ultrasonic and thermal sensor to track people moving into her personal space; when they get too close the dress unfurls panniers that act as a physical impediment to getting any closer. She basically recreated the social distance enforced by the clothing of the Elizabethan era. The video is long, but the first 30 minutes are her talking about her designs and the rest features a lot of Q&A with makers about her methodology and tools. Hat tip to Iskander Smit’s awesome newsletter for the find. (YouTube)

When tech meets medical devices: What do you get when you combine hundreds of millions in venture dollars, a walled garden mindset, and a global pandemic pushing buyers to act? If you’re in the tech world it’s an incredible opportunity, but if you’re in medicine, a heavily regulated industry, you get a close-up view of the unregulated mindset of the “build-fast-and-break-things” approach. That’s the takeaway from this article about the growth of research into medical devices that rely on different biomarkers to determine health. The folks at the Digital Medicine Society looked at all of the new devices and algorithms out there in the digital medicine sector and discovered more than 1,000 options that doctors and patients can choose from. What’s surprising is there aren’t even 1,000 biomarkers out there. And even if there were, it would be exhausting for doctors, who have a duty to provide quality care, to delve into the efficacy of a mere 10% of the available options. This isn’t the consumer web, y’all. We need to consolidate research and stop betting on digital snake oil. (DiMe)

Plume signs deal with Akamai to make parental rules work across networks: Plume has inked a deal with content delivery network Akamai to make its rules engine and security service operate in the home and on other networks. Plume’s Wi-Fi service included security and parental controls for home networks, and now the deal with Akamai offers both an extended view of threats that might happen deeper in the internet, but also ensures that the rules associated with a Plume account transfer to devices outside of the home associated with the account. Which means that if you set a parental control rule to stop your kid from gaming after 10 p.m. they can no longer switch over to the LTE network to keep playing. (Fierce Wireless)

Wyze is struggling with production: Last week Wyze had to send an email out to customers explaining that it would delay its watch shipments, and this week it sent an email explaining that because of shortages in the chip world, it would not have enough third-generation Wyze Cams to meet demand. Wyze isn’t alone in facing chip shortages. Even giant automotive companies are struggling. But the email went on to say that Wyze plans to adjust its focus to make additional products that aren’t actually connected to the internet, such as its recently announced hand-held vacuum. So expect more dumb (but cheap) Wyze products this year while supply chains sort themselves out. Wyze also says it will put more emphasis on services such as the Cam Plus subscription or the newly announced home monitoring option. (Wyze)