TE Connectivity recently published the results of its IoT sensor survey. In it are the thoughts and opinions of design engineers from across a wide array of industries. The folks at TE took this information and compiled it into a report that outlines the three most common challenges they have to deal with when designing for the Internet of Things.
So what are they? In short, the challenges are as follows:
- Finding the appropriate hardware
- Establishing connectivity
- Dealing with security issues
Those surveyed are primarily senior engineers with an interest in automotive, consumer and industrial IoT. Of the 180 engineers surveyed, 49% said that finding the right hardware and establishing the proper form of connectivity are the two biggest challenges. This is, of course, no surprise, what with the availability of some many wired and wireless technology options for IoT devices.
When it comes to security, it is important to recognize the fact that the IoT industry, as a whole, is still going through some growing pains. And one of the biggest pains for the companies in this space is developing best practices and platforms to deliver and manage IoT security for billions of connected devices.
For those curious, there is a fourth and fifth common challenge, respectively. The fourth challenge is finding the right software. 43% of respondents selected this option. Cloud computing issues is the fifth challenge, but only 14% of those surveyed selected this challenge.
One thing to note from the survey: Design engineers expect 5G to help foster the continued growth of IoT. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said that they expect 5G will lead to getting data faster which, in turn, will lead to the development of new IoT applications. Faster speeds and lower end-to-end latency will also lead to new IoT applications.
With all of these challenges and various items of consideration, if you will, it makes you wonder – how does a design engineer even begin their IoT solution design? Well, according to the survey, 78% of design engineers start with hardware choices; 20% said they begin by first specifying the solution’s software.
Read the survey in full here: IoT Sensor Market Survey
