In the era of digitalization, IoT is fostering the upcoming revolution in mobile apps. The ways companies used to provide mobile app development are changing because of IoT. After helping thousands of corporates to deliver extraordinary user experiences, IoT is all set with some new and advanced mobile app development trends. 

The tech world is the one that is continuously evolving. Every year and each day, innovations come to light. Each of them is revolutionizing our lives in one or the other ways. From the first wheel to smart cities, humans have come a long way.

The evolution and foundation of smart cities is the result of IoT or the Internet of Things. IoT has definitely stirred quite an uproar in the digital world with the mass potential it has. It can bring everything and everyone online. 

As per the latest mobile app stats, IoT will become a more significant player in the mobile app development industry. The market share of IoT is going to increase more than double in 2021 with a staggering amount of 520 billion USD. While four years back in 2017, this number was 235 billion USD. 

Soon the IoT mobile app development will face new trends in the coming year and beyond.

Let us take a look at the top IoT mobile app development trends.

IoT App Trend #1: Cybersecurity for IoT

With an increase in the number of devices online, cybersecurity is the top priority for all businesses as IoT gains popularity. The network is expected to expand in the coming years, and so the data volume will also increase. All this draws attention to more information to protect.

IoT security will see an exponential rise as more users will store their data over the cloud. From banking details to home security, everything is easily breached if the security firewall is weak in IoT applications. 

Therefore mobile app development companies need to work upon the up-gradation of their IoT enabled mobile apps. 

IoT App Trend #2: Roaring Popularity of Smart Home Devices

When smart home devices were launched, many mocked them by calling them unrealistic toys for lazy youngsters. Now, the same people are finding it increasingly difficult to resist the charm of IoT devices. 

IoT devices are expected to be very popular in 2021 and the years to come. The reason behind their growing popularity is that the IoT devices are becoming highly intuitive and innovative. They are extended not only to the comfort of home automation but also to home security and the safety of your family.

Another great advantage of implementing smart IoT development adoption is the need to save energy. The intelligent lights or intelligent thermostats help in conserving energy, reducing bills. These reasons will lead to more and more people to adopt smart home devices.

IoT App Trend #3: Backed by AI and ML

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning both are thriving technologies. Both of these are the facilitators of automation. We all know how Artificial Intelligence has touched millions of lives around the globe. 

Together with IoT, AI and ML are unique data-driven technologies shaping the future of human-machine interactions. The developers set up a combination of IoT and Artificial Intelligence that helps automate the routine tasks, simplifies work, and gets the most accurate information.

IoT App Trend #4: IoT and Healthcare

With the revolution in the health-tech industry, healthcare companies are turning towards mobile platforms. IoT enabled apps to open up new opportunities to improve the medical sector.

IoT has immense applications that are already running in the healthcare field and is expected to increase by 26.2% 

Healthcare apps featuring IoT technology are expected to reform the world of medical sciences. These IoT mobile apps can even help doctors and medical professionals treat their patients even from a distance.

Smart wearables and implants will be able to record diverse parameters to keep the patient’s health in check. By integrating sensors, portable devices, and all kinds of medical equipment, real-time updates of a patient’s health can be recorded and sent to the concerned person. 

IoT App Trend #5: Edge Computing to Overtake Cloud Computing

This is a change where we have to be careful. For the past many years, IoT devices have been storing their data on cloud storage. However, the IoT developers, development services, and manufacturers have started thinking about the utility of storing, calculating, and analyzing data to the limit.

So basically this means, in place of sending the entire data from IoT devices to the cloud, the data is first transmitted to a local or nearer storage device located close to the IoT device or on the edge of the network. 

This local storage device then analyzes, sorts, filters and calculates the data and then sends all or only a part of the data to the cloud, reducing the traffic on the network avoiding any bottleneck situation.

Known as “edge computing”, this approach has several advantages if used correctly. Firstly, it helps in the better management of the large amount of data that each device sends. Second, the reduced dependency on cloud storage allows devices and applications to perform faster and also reduce latency.

Being able to collect and process data locally, the IoT application is expected to consume lesser bandwidth and work even when connectivity to the cloud is affected. After seeing these positive aspects, state-of-the-art computing is looking forward to better innovation and broad adoption in IoT, both consumer and industrial.

Reduced connectivity to the cloud will also result in fewer security costs and facilitate better security practices. 2021 will see better state-of-the-art IT in IoT.

IoT App Trend #6: Are You Excited About Smart Cities?

Well, all of us are super excited to witness smart cities. Smart cities are one of the significant accomplishments of IoT and modernization. Integrated with IoT-powered devices, smart cities promise improved efficiency and security for the common folk on the streets and inside their homes.

With superfast data transfer supported by 5G, public transportation will also see a massive change in the way they work. 

By now, we know that IoT will focus on developing smart parking lots, street lights, and traffic controls. To add up to this, with IoT and fast internet, we will live inside a world where our refrigerators will be aware of what food we have inside.

IoT will impact traffic congestion and security. It will also help in the development of sustainable cities leading us to a green future.

IoT App Trend #7: Blockchain for IoT Security

Many financial and governmental institutions, entrepreneurs, consumers as well as industrialists will be decentralized, self-governing, and be quite smart. Most of the new companies are seen building their territory on the entanglement of IOTA to develop modules and other components for firms without the cost of SaaS and Cloud.

IOTA is a distributed ledger especially designed to record and execute transactions between devices in the IoT ecosystem.

If you are in this industry, then you should prepare to see the centralized and monolithic computer models that are separated in the jobs and microservices. All this will be distributed to decentralized machines and devices. 

In the coming future, IoT will penetrate the disciplines of health, government, transactions, and others that we cannot think of right now. Such types of IoT technology trends will create significant effective differences.

IoT App Trend #8: IoT for Retail Apps

The eCommerce industry will also get benefited from IoT integration. Retail supply change will be more efficient after the incorporation of IoT mobile apps. It is expected to improve the online shopping experience for individuals across the globe.

Also, IoT will make the retail experience more personalized for each customer with in-app advertisements based on the user’s shopping history. We already get notifications once we purchase a product from a particular eStore. With IoT enabled mobile apps, the app will guide us to our favorite store using in-site maps.

IoT App Trend #9- Will IoT Boost Predictive Maintenance?

Yes, it will. In 2021 and beyond, the smart home system will notify the owner about plumbing leaks, appliance failures, or any other problem so that the house owner can avoid any disaster. Soon these intelligent sensors will enter our houses.

In response to these predictive skills of IoT, we can expect to see home care offers as a contractor service. If there will be a need for any emergency action, your presence in the house will not be necessary. 

IoT App Trend #10: Easy and Better Commuting

IoT mobile applications are expected to make commuting easier for students, the elderly, the business person, and many more. Today, due to heavy traffic, commuting is a significant issue for most of us. With major innovations in technology and integration of IoT, mobile applications will make traveling a breeze for everyone.

Here are some of the conventional ways that commuting will change:

• Smart street lights will make walking on the road safe for pedestrians
• Finding parking spaces will be a lot easier and seamless with data-driven parking apps. 
• In-app navigation and public transportation will definitely make public transit more reliable 
• IoT powered mobile apps will also improve routing between different modes of transfer.

With so many innovative ideas and benefits for iOS and android based IoT mobile apps, the mobile app development market will see an influx of transportation apps in the years to come.

IoT App Trend #11: Sustainable-as-a-Service Becomes the Norm.

While talking about the IoT trends, SaaS or Sustainable-as-a-Service is considered as one of the hot topics for the estimated market. Because of the low cost of entry, SaaS is quickly getting to the top list for being the favorite firm in the IT gaming sector. 

Out of these emerging technological IoT trends, Software-as-a-service will make the lives of people better than ever.

IoT App Trend #12- Energy and Resource Management 

Do you know what affects energy management the most? Well, energy management majorly depends on the acquisition of a better understanding of how to consume resources. IoT mobile app-based electronics are expected to play a significant role in the conservation of energy. 

All of these IoT trends can be integrated into resource management, making lives more accessible, more comfortable, and responsible.

Automatic notifications can also be added to the mobile app in order to send information to the owner in case the power threshold exceeds. Various other fancy features can also be added to these IoT mobile apps such as sprinkler control, in-house temperature management, etc.

Conclusion

We all know that IoT has great potential to bring revolutionary changes in the present mobile app development industry trends. It is expected to open up immense possibilities for every business or individual related to this field. Directly or indirectly, IoT will drive the future of almost every industry.

The above mentioned are some of the trends that will dominate the IoT app development ecosystem in the years to come. Amid all these predictions and trends, the future is promising and worth the wait. 

Now that the Internet of Things has become a social and technical phenom, it is time to check out some of the coming year trends for app developers and the Internet of Things.

Due to the massive amounts of data that is able to be moved through the Internet of Things airways, app developers will continue to develop apps that help as far as artificial intelligence and machine learning. It is not because of the massive amount of information and data that is sent through, rather because of the amount, app developers are working on applications that are able to make logical sense from the information and data.

Storing information and data in the cloud has become firsthand to people and businesses alike. Due to the high amount of bandwidth required to save information in the cloud, businesses are looking for ways to expand on the cloud. All have used private clouds, public clouds and even a private data center, however app developers are working on ways to combine all of those options. When looking for ways to streamline all the business needs, connected clouds are becoming more of a trend. App developers are designing more of a multi-cloud habitat for information and data.

There is a simulation tool that works alongside machine learning, or artificial intelligence. The DTT, Digital Twin Technology is known as a hybrid twin, is a virtual imitation of real products, processes, system or asset used for certain purposes.

Although cloud storage will remain popular in use, app developers are getting real close to edge architecture. This brings the centralized system and the cloud to a further expansive advantage. Not only cheaper but able to be more effective, edge architecture is able to store more data in a micro center.

This is the year of advancement for the 5G mobile devices and their improvements. Last year we witnessed 5G brought to life in applications. Now we see that the new 5G cellular networks will gain massive attention in the Internet of Things. Which will ultimately begin the change of the landscape for the IoT?

We are facing the age of Social acceptance or denial for the Internet of Things. The longer that the Internet of Things develops, the more we will find that some groups are questioning the social, ethical and legal issues. This is because the Internet of Things is very broad-based and capable of changing all business areas.

Infonomics is moving data ownership or monetization to brand new heights. All this data in the Internet of Things will become more of an asset.

The user experience of the Internet of Things is going to be led by factors such as new sensors, new experience edge architecture and context, and of course new and different algorithms. We will then need to adopt new ways without the use of screens or keyboards, and definitely no voice assistant.

There will also be a massive increase of the Smart Homes. App developers have increased the Smart apps that we use, and are developing apps that will make our homes interact with people. Imagine a world where the home is not only where the heart is, but also the home that directs it’s people on what to do.

This means it will not be too far off before app developers have found a way to make smart cities or smart towns. This possibility that the Internet of Things can mix with responsive cities to lighten the traffic congestion, improve the safety in its community and also look for ways to maintain sustainability.

It is also coming closer to the time when the Internet of Things combines with Artificial Intelligence and we produce the robotic assistants. They will help make all critical decisions that need to be made. This self-learning system will read all analytics and derive any important changes.

App developers already have created many apps for Artificial Intelligence. There is a little robot like ‘friends’ that will assist in teaching your children, they interact with the child and some can have little conversations with the child.

A huge improvement that will be soon possible with the help of app developers is what we can call predictive maintenance. This can prevent the labor costs associated with routine maintenance when it is not necessary. Predictive maintenance could be intelligent apps designed by app development companies to notify before maintenance is needed. This could be helpful in automation businesses as a warning before there is a big issue or major break in a piece of equipment. Maintenance will only be necessary when any change is noted in the process or working gears of the machines.

The benefits of predictive maintenance or predictive skills will help auto and health insurance industries to lessen risks or have payouts when the vehicle, home or health issue would have been maintained as needed.

It may not be too far into the future when we are living like George Jetson and his family did, in the days of our youth and on the television. Was that truly foresight, or just a dumb cartoon made up for kids to laugh at? All the technology that has developed to this point, and app developers continue to make our lives easier with smart apps, I do truly think we are very near George Jetson and his wife. Maybe we will be in flying cars real soon too? Dare we say that we do have skywalks, and some automated ones.

The fourth edition of the Internet of Things Solutions World Congress (IoTSWC), which took place in Barcelona earlier this month, signaled an increasing interest in the technology, with the number of attendees jumping by 25 percent year over year, to 16,250. The range of topics discussed shows that IoT is being embraced by companies in every sector, and that the technology has now passed from the development phase to the implementation of practical solutions whose results are increasingly evident.

The 200 speeches and panels were divided into thematic areas (manufacturing, healthcare, connected transport, energy and utilities, buildings and infrastructures and open industry). Along with two related events, AI & Cognitive Systems Forum and Blockchain Solutions World, these included -- at the insistence of Richard Soley, Executive Director of the Industrial IoT Consortium -- presentations of concrete use cases. The Industrial IoT Consortium was co-organizer of the event together with Fira Barcelona.

Bringing order to the Babel of protocols

Although natural selection -- perhaps facilitated by the future evolution of 5G networks -- is likely to reduce the number, too many standards and communication protocols for the Internet of Things will continue for a long time. The "translation" of the signals and their integration into information flows will therefore continue to represent an opportunity for system integrators and companies operating in this sector. Although frameworks and platforms are emerging to manage and standardize the different peripheral systems (the Foundation's open source EdgeX Foundry proposal deserves attention), they do not exist yet and there will be no "plug and play" solutions for  IoT for a while.

Artificial intelligence to give value to data

Artificial intelligence is the fundamental ingredient needed to make sense of the vast amount of data collected these days, and increase its value for business. The easiest way to implement it is to resort to the API services of cloud operators such as  Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM. The risk of using standard solutions accessible to all is that they reduce the competitive advantage of the enterprises that use them, since they can be easily implemented by competitors. Creating a proprietary IA platform, however, will not be possible for  everyone.

Edge computing to overcome the limits of the cloud

The cloud, meanwhile, is showing its limits: Fast and constant connectivity is not always possible, especially in the case of connected vehicles or installations in remote areas; latency between sending data, processing and response is not always compatible with certain applications; and storage costs are are high even for data that is not necessarily indispensable.

There is therefore a growing tendency to relocate part of the storage and processing of data to the periphery of the network, close to sensors and connected objects. This so-called "edge computing" will be increasingly important and increasingly intelligent, thanks to chips optimized for machine learning and solutions able to bring "on premises" the AI algorithms of the "usual suspects", such as Amazon Greengrass, Google Cloud IoT Edge (still in alpha version) or Microsoft Azure IoT Edge.

Digital twins pass from objects to production flows

The creation of a digital twin, which thanks to data collected by sensors can provide a realistic virtual representation of products and systems, will be increasingly applied to entire production processes, allowing not only the monitoring of entire plants, but also predicting what will happen when a new model is out into production, or some variables change. This, according to proponents of the technology, will lead to greater efficiency, faster time-to-market and fewer glitches and non-compliance issues.

If you have read my post “Will finally be 2017, the year of Internet of Things? I do not think so.” you will have confirmed there were some analysts and companies who guessed and others who did not hit the bullseye.

As usual, numerous predictions about the Internet of Things (IoT) appear at the end of the year, some with foundation, others by interests and others by opportunism. Although I notice a certain fatigue this year perhaps due to the appearance of other cooler technologies or very likely to the lack of success and few differences from previous predictions. 

It may also be the last time I write an IoT prediction article.

Let's start by reviewing some of the 2017 predictions.

Successes and failures of IoT 2017 predictions

Sorry Morgan Stanley but 2017 has not been The Year Of Internet Of Things however is true that there is less hype around IoT.

Yes Forrester, we continue worried that there will be a large-scale IoT security breach.

As not many large IoT projects in 2017, the role of System Integrators has not been as important as IDC predicted.

Have you seen, Analysys Mason, key developments in LPWA technologies, connected cars and smart cities?

Who now, MachNation if Internet of Things platform revenue grow 116% in 2017. There are only financial numbers but we all agree with Sandhill that still many doubts how “Choose your platform.”

It is true Forbes “The Internet of Things (IoT) is still a popular buzzword, but adoption will continue to be slow.” 

I have to say that Judith Hurwitz and Associates, were right that the growth will be in industrial sector rather than the consumer sector.

Hard to fail if you consider what Moor Insights & Strategy predicted: IoT is still in its infancy in terms of dollars and deployments, and that can’t last much longer, before market frustration sets in. 

Brave, ADLINK and FreeWave Technologies, Inc predicted that Edge computing will become a mainstream term for IIoT. 

Internet of Things Institute - “Recruiting Will Remain a Challenge for Organizations with IoT Initiatives” and sorry Teradata not many companies looking for Internet of Things architect role.

Tier-1 operators in the US and Europe happy with Northstream because IoT revenues contributing up to 3% of total revenue in 2017. 

Telefonica IoT and Cisco Jasper trusted that LPWA expansion to harness the growing IoT.

What will be of IoT in 2018?

According with Ericsson, in 2018, mobile phones are expected to be surpassed in numbers by IoT devices.

It seems that 2018 will be the year when AI and IoT will converge. But it will also be the year in which the CIOs will be busy integrating device management into overall IT infrastructure in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the organization. This is where the adoption of application robots, natural language processing (NLP) and AI automation of processes will come into their own, offering intelligent management of IoT deployments cheaply and efficiently. 

However, 2018 will not be the year of Blockchain and the IoT, because although Blockchain-based IoT adoption rises to 5%, Blockchain is not yet ready for large scale deployments requiring reliability, stability and seamless integration with existing technology infrastructure. But promising pilot projects are beginning to emerge and the maturation of IoT and blockchain technologies and products will drive blockchain adoption in 2018.

To reinforce the ongoing investment across the industry Gartner’s Strategic Trends for 2018 back up the focus on IoT with Intelligent Things, Digital Twins and Cloud to the Edge all making the list for the coming year. 

On the other hand, Forrester affirms that finally 2018 will be the year in which the Internet of Things moves from "experimentation to business scale". Forrester also predicts that IoT platform offerings will begin to specialize in “design” and “operate” scenarios.

Punctual to his annual appointment, IDC makes its Worldwide IoT 2018 Predictions. 

One more year, Citrix leading thinkers also share their predictions.

A small  startup, Imagimob considers 6 trends in the IoT and Industrial IoT-IIOT in 2018. As you can imagine Low Power Area Networks (LPWAN), Edge computing, AI on the edge and Blockchain are included.

IoT Security repeat predictions in 2018. Forrester in the same line predict More cyber threats and design specialization.

Fog Computing, Security, and Smarter Decisions are IoT Predictions for 2018 by Saar Yoskovitz, CEO of Augury, a preventive maintenance company.

The State of IoT In 2018 for Marketers: We’re going to experience a massive increase in the number of digitally connected devices, changing the game for marketers across the globe.

IoT 2018 – the next stage: the IoT of integration, value and action

IoT Will Move From Experimentation To Business Scale - 

5 IoT trends that will define 2018 - In 2018, IoT-based ventures will have greater access to startup capital and be taken more seriously in the market. 

Only one wish for IoT 2018 from my side

In spite, I am not in this list of 17 Experts Tell The Most Exciting IoT Trends to Watch for in 2018, I have a wish for 2018: 

“I hope that in 2018, all proofs of concept become successful projects and that the most innovative startups resist the temptation to be acquired." 

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