IoT news of the week for Jan. 4, 2018

Samsara raises $100M for fleet management: Samsara, which started out as a broad IoT platform and quickly narrowed its focus to fleet management, has raised $100 million in funding at a reported $3.6 billion valuation. That brings it into unicorn territory, but what’s interesting is that the company has not spent money from its previous raise and is basically hanging onto cash because it’s predicting a downturn. Given the shocking Apple statements this week about a disappointing quarter, and the markets over the holidays, perhaps Samsara is wise. (TechCrunch)

August has a new doorbell in the works: Ahead of CES, the FCC database is rife with products that we expect to see launched or displayed at the consumer electronics show held each year in Las Vegas. In the home security category, electronics site Zatz Not Funny uncovered photos of a new doorbell from August. It is a departure from the original August doorbell’s striking square design and looks more like the Ring video doorbell. I loved the design of the original August so much that I purchased one, only to lament the inability to see anything in the dark on the device and its less-than-speedy connection. While I’d love to see a competitor to Nest and Ring with a new doorbell from August (now owned by the maker of Yale locks), I’m curious if it can gain market share. I’m also curious what that might mean for Yale’s work with both Amazon and Google’s respective smart home ecosystems. (Zatz Not Funny)

Ring’s new lights are coming: In 2017, Ring purchased a lighting company called Mr. Beams, and we all thought it would mean more outdoor lighting from the company. But we heard nothing. That may be about to change at CES, as David Zatz of Zatz Not Funny has spotted some mentions of wireless lights in an FCC filing, indicating that Ring is planning to launch something in that category. He also suggests Ring might be launching something that could make existing outdoor lighting smarter, which would be a welcome device for many of the folks out there with landscape lighting in place and a desire to make it just a wee bit smarter. (Zatz Not Funny)

Chamberlain has new cameras in the works? Apparently no one checked the FCC database over the holidays, because again we have Dave Zatz sharing a possible new device based on the resource. In his trawling, he discovered that Chamberlain — the garage door company and maker of the awesome MyQ device — has a camera in the works, as well as some sort of partnership or account link with Lockitron locks. (Zatz Not Funny)

Let’s see some more smart city playbooks: This is apparently an older document that someone shared on Twitter recently, but I thought it was awesome for anyone trying to pitch a city on smart city tech. My favorite aspect was probably the request from the City of Boston that vendors don’t pitch it without having first pitched the constituency of residents it wants to help. Basically, if you want to put smart street lights in an innovation district, first talk to the people who live there to find out what they want. If you have a smart traffic light solution, chat about the current infrastructure with residents, nearby businesses, and maybe even emergency workers. Will companies get contradictory answers and inane feature requests? Yes. But they will also show that they are trying to build a solution for the problems at hand as opposed to trying to retrofit existing tech for a new use case or jam a theoretical use case down the throat of a municipality. (Github)

Trends in computer vision: In this week’s podcast, I interviewed Scott MacDonald, managing partner of McRock Capital. As an industrial IoT investor, MacDonald has a theory that the last five years of building out IoT infrastructure were basically the body of the next generation of computing. If that’s the case, then computer vision provides the eyes of the IoT. This linked article lays out what went on in computer vision last year, from elements we’ve covered in the newsletter, such as synthetic computer vision, all the way to things such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), which can be used to create images that are completely fake. The false images GANs are used to create include imaginary people or videos of real people saying things they’ve never said. The article gives enough of a technical overview that those familiar with computer vision will find it valuable, while being written well enough for novices to understand. (Medium)

IoT is bringing you better airport bathrooms? Airport bathrooms are getting fancy as airports try to keep up with passenger expectations and overcrowded facilities. What’s fun in this article is how these airports are relying first on connected buttons to determine if their bathrooms pass muster, and then later on connected dispensers of soap, toilet paper, and more to know when to clean and service them. It also mentions one of my favorite IoT products, Tooshlights, which lets you know if a stall is occupied or not with a simple red or green light. The IoT really is making a difference, y’all. (The Wall Street Journal)