IoT news of the week for May 5, 2023

Washington state has enacted a law to protect health data: Most people are unaware that the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) only protects health data shared by doctors and insurance companies. So when your medical data leaves those confines (for example, if you send it to Apple Health or post it on a website) it can be shared or sold. As we connect more devices and retain the history of connected device data on the web, it becomes imperative to close loopholes around personal medical data. The State of Washington has started this process with the signing of a bill last week that will give consumers the right to withdraw consent and request data deletion. It will also restrict geofencing around health care facilities, prohibit the collection and sharing of health data without consent, and require entities that collect this data to provide consumers with a privacy policy disclosing the use of their health data. Businesses must comply with the law starting March 31, 2024 (June 30, 2024 for small businesses). This makes Washington the first state to enact a medical privacy law. The law also attempts to promote privacy associated with biometric data (including gait, iris, and facial features) as well as genotype and phenotype data as identified from genetic materials. That feels especially far-reaching. Maybe I should get my DNA tested now, since as a citizen of the state I could then delete the results. (Washington State Legislature)

The DoD has an infection-detection algorithm that could work on any wearable: The Department of Defense, together with Philips, has built an algorithm that has proven able to detect signs of illness in military personnel. Moreover, it works on most off-the-shelf wearable devices. The algorithm uses biometric markers to detect infections for up to 48 hours before symptoms appear and in some cases, up to six days. The DoD plans to make the algorithm available for licensing to other companies, but its primary goal was establishing a way to keep soldiers healthy and avoid passing on infections to the group. Initial tests have proven that the algorithm works, so the next step is to test it on 4,500 more participants in the department. I’d love to see something like this in the school-age population. (DoD)

Smart buildings get another standards effort as sustainability drives adoption: Commercial buildings apparently contribute 37% of greenhouse gases, which means that in a carbon-constrained economy, helping to reduce building emissions is a burgeoning big business. That is why we’re seeing attempts to create standardized ways of classifying building sensors and equipment so they can be controlled by software. I’ve covered the Brick Consortium and Haystack in prior issues of this newsletter, and now a company called Buildings IOT has released its building ontology as open source code. The Ontology Alignment Project acts as middleware between building projects that might use existing standards such as Project Haystack and the Brick schema to classify equipment and their relationships, letting building owners and architects pick one of them without worrying if it will mesh with other buildings in their eventual portfolio over time. (Fierce Electronics)

The German company behind the Neato vacuum is shutting that division down: Vorwerk, the German company behind one of my favorite gadgets (the Thermomix), has shut down its robotic vacuum division that uses the Neato brand name. The D-shaped Neato vacuums were actually good vacuums, but didn’t have the brand recognition of other options — or a cheap price tag. The closure affects 98 employees in the California headquarters of Neat Robotics, and Vorwerk says that it will maintain a staff of 14 people for the next five years to ensure the security and functioning of the vacuum’s cloud software and app. Additionally, Vorwerk says that it will provide replacement parts for up to five years. If you’re going to shut down an underperforming connected device, this is the way to do it. (Vorwerk Gruppe)

Even Amazon employees worried about Halo’s privacy implications: This deep dive into what Amazon had planned for its Halo wearables and fitness service and why it shut it down is excellent. We learn that Amazon was trying to compete with online fitness products and build an AI trainer, as well as provide similar services as Calm’s meditation app as part of the Halo services. We also learn that even Amazon employees worried about the data Amazon collected through the Halo devices, especially the idea of analyzing their workouts using a camera. Plus, people hated the hardware. If nothing else, this is a perfect example of how hard it can be to get connected products right. You need good hardware and user trust. Apple is leaning hard into this, while Amazon may be learning the hard way. (The Verge)

ADT may launch an indoor drone for commercial security clients: In a small tidbit included in ADT’s first quarter financials, the security company mentioned that it has sold its first autonomous commercial security product in the first quarter of this year and that it plans to commercialize indoor drones for autonomous commercial security later in 2023. Sure it was silly when Amazon showed off a flying Ring camera for consumer use, but will an indoor autonomous drone work better for commercial clients? (CE Pro)

MIT shows off tiny antennas for tiny, battery-powered sensors: MIT researchers have shown off a terahertz-powered receiver that could be used to trigger a wake mode in a battery-powered device. This is significant because if a hardware engineer can use the tightly packed terahertz frequencies to trigger a sensor to wake, they can build a smaller sensor that also consumes a few microwatts of power. Generally, antennas must be proportional to the size of the radio waves they use to communicate, so by using terahertz signals, the antenna size can be smaller (about a tenth of the size of more traditional radio waves). This leads to a sensor that’s about 1 mm in size and which consumes 3 microwatts. Perfect for smart dust. (SciTech Daily)

New materials mean better piezoelectric energy harvesting: Researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario have built a new material that makes piezoelectric energy harvesting more useful. The researchers replaced the traditional lead used to make piezoelectric materials with a single crystal of a molecular metal-halide compound called edabco copper chloride that they grew in a lab. This material provides more energy density making the resulting piezoelectric harvesters more powerful and more able to power a device without needing to use a battery. I’m ready for it. (University of Waterloo)