IoT news of the week for Jan. 3, 2020

GE now has smart lights that don’t require a neutral wire: One of the most common complaints about installing smart switches is that it’s too difficult. And that complaint is almost always followed by complaints about a lack of a neutral wire. GE is trying to solve the installation complaints with a new line of light switches that will be out in the middle of next year after being previewed at CES.  Some of the new switches don’t require a neutral wire and instead have wires that can handle both the line and load, which means you can install them without knowing what wire to connect as long as you can identify your ground wire. The lights will work seamlessly with Amazon and Google assistants. GE is also launching its own smart home platform, which has me wondering why it isn’t standing by the newly announced Connected Home over IP effort put forth in early December. (CNET)

An idea to prevent data leaks caused by developer error: The Wyze hack, which was caused by an employee using production data (that’s actual data as opposed to faked consumer data) for a test project and forgetting to shut down the test project’s database, was big news this past week. Also this week, Starbucks said hackers may have gained access to its systems thanks to a developer posting an API key to Github. These aren’t egregious security flaws on the part of a company. Instead, they are common errors that humans make from time to time. What’s changed is that the ramifications of such errors can be more costly in a connected world. And the stakes are only going to get higher as laws stipulate fines for data breaches and the type of data released becomes ever more personal. I subsequently propose that companies institute a checklist similar to those used in hospital operating rooms or on commercial airlines. Such checklists are designed to run professionals through common safety measures each and every time they perform their jobs. While no surgeon loves them, and pilots may rush through them, they have demonstrably reduced the number of infections in hospitals and helped make aviation safer. When it comes to sharing code on Github or putting data on an AWS database, it seems we should have something similar.  — Stacey Higginbotham

Industrial analytics company Seeq has found $24M in funding: After raising a $23 million Series B round in July 2018, it appears that industrial analytics company Seeq is fundraising again. According to CRN, which cites an SEC filing, Seattle-based Seeq has sold $24.3 million in equity as of Dec. 10, 2019. The company is seeking to raise $29.9 million in total as it expands. (CRN)

Want to freak out over poor data practices? The EU’s GDPR regulations have been around for more than 18 months now, and it’s shocking to go through the list of fines and see what companies have been doing with data and how cavalier they have been when it comes to securing it. If you still don’t think we need data regulations in the U.S., browse through these fines and complaints to get a sense of how necessary it is to have rules. (EnforcementTracker)

Resideo joins the Zigbee Board: Following on the heels of the Connected Home over IP standard effort spearheaded by Apple, Amazon, and Google, Resideo has joined the board of the Zigbee Alliance, which will manage the CHIP standard. Resideo is one of the larger providers of smart home infrastructure through the Honeywell Home brand. The news isn’t surprising, but worth noting. (Zigbee Alliance)

Legrand taps Netatmo brand for new battery-powered switches: Finally, Legrand, the European maker of outlets, switches, and electrical gear, is making more of its products — including the beautiful adorne line of outlets and switches — smart. Legrand designed the new products with Netatmo, a company it acquired in 2018, to deliver instantaneous monitoring of power consumption, remote surveillance, and the control of lights, shades, sensors, electrical appliances, and other Zigbee 3.0 devices. Netatmo supports Alexa, Google, and Siri control as well as IFTTT.  The new switches include some that are battery powered and can be mounted on any surface. I’ll check them out at CES and report back. (Legrand)

Machine Metrics has changed its holiday practice to align with IIoT data: In a fascinating tidbit around a new survey, the CEO of Machine Metrics shared that his company has seen industrial utilization rates fall during certain holidays such as Christmas, but not during others, like Columbus Day. With that in mind, the company took the step of adding more holidays for its employees around those matching low utilization rates so it could give them time off without inconveniencing customers. The blog post announcing the move offers several insights from the underlying survey that are worth looking at. (Smart Industry)

Here’s a product promising to make building custom chips easier: What if building a sensor or an IoT device was as easy as building a LEGO design? A startup called zGlue says it has created exactly that, building software that allows designers to select from among 1,500 “chiplets” to build a single custom chip designed for an IoT application. ZGlue is using CES to announce software called ChipBuilder Pro that engineers can license for $25,000 that lets designers create their custom chips. The price may seem high, but it’s a fraction of the cost of building a chip. That amount lets the designers prototype a chip each year and zGlue lets them take those designs straight to manufacturing. The startup is working with Google which is testing the concept and has a partnership with Cypress Semiconductor so it’s software can piece together a Cypress Wi-Fi module. It’s a fascinating idea and I am really curious to learn more. (zGlue)

Another IoT startups list: This one, from LightReading, has some of the usual contenders, including those I’ve written about such as Helium, Particle, and location-tracking startup PoLTE. It also adds a German company called Konux to the mix along with Ray Ozzie’s new startup, Blue Wireless. Konux builds sensors for trains and Blue Wireless is building a module to connect devices to AT&T’s network. Konux is in a huge industry in the midst of a digital update, while Blue Wireless builds cellular connectivity into devices while letting the device manufacturers offer the product without having to charge the end user a subscription fee. (LightReading)

Wi-Fi what? Let’s give the Wi-Fi Alliance a brief hand for taking something that used to be simple and making it an unfriendly consumer mess. The Alliance, not content to create Wi-Fi 6 as a new label for the latest version of the connectivity standard, has decided to introduce a new label. The Alliance is hoping that the FCC allocates new spectrum in the 6GHz band for Wi-Fi (currently Wi-Fi works in the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands) and so it has created the Wi-Fi 6E label to denote products that will operate in the 6GHz airwaves. While I’m frustrated with the Alliance for stupid naming conventions, it is between a rock and hard place. Customers have plenty of old Wi-Fi gear around, but that gear won’t be supported on a new spectrum band because the radios won’t work. But if new gear comes out, the old routers won’t be able to see the new 6GHz gear. Which means that customer confusion is coming soon, either way you slice it. But I still wish they just told people to go buy a new router in a few years once this spectrum is in use. If it is in use.   (FierceWireless)

Update: Updated on Jan. 6, 2020 to reflect that zGlue has 1,500 chiplets available, not 150.