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What happened to Smart City Technology?

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It’s still out there. Unfortunately, many smart city demos killed a lot of companies that did this stuff. While you will hear about all the smart city deployments, how many have been successful?

I really thought the smart city use case would be a success. I was somewhat wrong. In fact, many cities have become the burial ground for smart city companies. I saw company after company die after running endless demos and tests, literally bankrupting them. 

However, not all was lost. Many cities got great improvements and can monitor things in real-time that they never could do before. What did this lead to? Predictive analysis and better tracking. This has led to improvements in the city around people, traffic, and air quality. 

Let’s not forget security, criminal activity can be tracked better than ever, not to mention fires, traffic accidents, and break-ins.

So, the tech is still there and constantly improving, but we take it for granted now. We have made so many improvements and are tracking a lot of different things. 

Unfortunately, we have so many wireless options. With 5G being released, the device makers have to contemplate making their devices in 5G or just staying where they are. This is no easy decision. They have to have compliant devices. The devices have to have enough sales to pay for the changes, testing, and acceptance. 

Successes:

For one, cameras are a huge success. Wireless cameras are almost everywhere, even with privacy issues in the US. Even body cams are on many police. 

In China, where privacy is a curse word, they love connected cameras. I believe that Shanghai has the largest concentration of cameras in the world. WOW! Now there is a smart city making the most out of smart surveillance. 

All the large and popular cities seem to have success stories.

  • New York City has LinkNYC. While this looks like a success, it has come with its own problems. The project was filled with problems and vendor issues. But, it seems to be complete now, just not exciting or a game-changer. However, the city is making the most out of these kiosks by adding sensors and cameras to them.
  • Singapore was a success. Even though you don’t hear about it much, they did a fine job of deploying tech across the city and actually using it.
  • London has a way to connect people to a ride. While this doesn’t sound hi-tech or like anything Uber isn’t already doing, it’s a success. They have a booming tourist business that needs to be fed. They also have smart tech monitoring power usage which seems to be going well.
  • Tokyo is installing smart meters everywhere. While that seems dull, they know it works and it will be a boon for them in that city.
  • Dubai has almost everything. They seem to have unlimited funding, (which is awesome!) to build out every system imaginable. They also make good use of it.
  • Shanghai has smart tech everywhere, especially cameras. They have a huge density of cameras everywhere. Unfortunately, the government there doesn’t release much data so we can only assume it’s a success.

The thing is, smart city initiatives didn’t go away, only the grants. Now the city needs to spend money wisely. Let’s face it, if you’ve worked on any smart city deals that didn’t involve grants, you know cities have little interest. Maybe utilities and local businesses. They need to have a reason to do it and that reason is generally cost reduction or price increases.

Oh, the Wi-Fi deployments are mostly done locally and by the cable companies. They’re doing a fine job, so why does the city have to waste time and money on it? They don’t!

Not Successes:

Toronto and Google’s Sidewalk Labs was one that failed. I think it had more to do with Google working with the government there and not with local businesses, but I am not sure. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out. I am thinking that if they would have partnered with commercially viable partners then it could have boomed.

The thing is, I love to visit Toronto, just a wonderful city so close to Buffalo. I know there are many universities there that would love to work on a project like this, it seems like they could have partners with any or most of them to get this rolling.

There is a book written on this by Josh O’Kane called “Sideways, the City Google Couldn’t Buy”, which I have yet to read, but it’s on my list. 

What’s ironic is that Amazon’s Sidewalk seems to be a success.

Article: https://www.emergingtechbrew.com/stories/2022/09/21/how-miscommunication-derailed-sidewalk-s-usd1-3-billion-city-of-the-future

There are so many others, like LinkNYC, which is debatable, but I would say it still falls into the success category.

China had Ordos, India had Lavasa, and Spain had Santander. While not considered a success, I don’t let that bother me because they tried. It adds data points to the baseline. 

Articles: https://tomorrow.city/a/why-do-smart-cities-fail and https://tomorrow.city/a/smart-cities-that-failed-along-the-way for more.

What about Smart Tech?

FYI – all the technology is everywhere, but mostly it is being used for businesses. A city uses it based on the use case. It should either make money or save money unless it’s related to saving lives or improving the quality of life. If a city has the budget, they can add these luxuries.

In a city, a department has to sponsor tech when there aren’t grants paying for it. Trust me, grants are easier when building, but the city has to figure out how to pay the OpEx going forward. That can be challenging, especially when it’s taxpayers’ money that someone is held accountable for. 

However, forget the Smart City for now, let’s just look at smart tech, it’s everywhere. It is usually successful when deployed by a business, not by a city unless it has to do with a specific city function like transportation or security. 

Smart City tech is smart tech, used everywhere. Why should the city pay for it if there isn’t a solid use case? They shouldn’t!!

Back to the trials mentioned above, the great thing about those trials was we got new devices and data to move ahead. See, it wasn’t all wasted time.

Smart meters for power, gas, and water are everywhere, it’s something that will live on for a long time. They are part of our future. 

Smart parking meters? Not so much a part of the future. I have seen them replaced by a sign with a QR code. Yes, by simply putting a sign with a picture of a QR code, people can pay on their devices with minimal city investment. Signs are cheap and last forever. Easy to replace if vandalized. I see a lot of connected parking meters, but the QR code thing makes a lot of sense.

The catch? We expect everyone to have a smartphone, and it’s expected to pay for their parking space. I guess if you can afford a car and a smartphone you can pay for the parking. I guess the iPhone really did change the world. 

As did iPay, the camera in the iPhone, and 4G/5G networks. Our connected world is beautiful.

So there you have it, smart tech is already obsolete, replaced by a sign. Not a smart sign, but a sign that tells you to use your own damn phone to finish the process. Extreme self-serve!

Do people care about smart cities?

I hope so, especially if the city shows improvements. However, there is more to a smart city than technology. Trust me, if a city is starting new, which isn’t common, they have an opportunity to plan everything. Smart goes into the buildings, streets, parks, and all the planning around it. It starts with planning and then migrates into regulations and laws. Not to mention taxes.

Sorry, back to tech.

Most cities are built out and they need to rely on shortcuts, like technology. Smart tech is the key.

Sadly, smart tech is losing its WOW factor and has to rely on payback, safety, or another solid use case. No more getting it because it’s cool! Now, some things are expected and others are considered a waste of money.

The exception is cameras. Cameras and AI made huge advancements in all cities, smart or not. While we have tons of privacy issues here in the States, we can use video for tracking and trending. This is a big help in most cities.

We can also track everything from car chases to human chases, (body cams).

People still care, but taxpayers don’t won’t fund smart cities just because it’s cool. They want a cost reduction or an income stream. Several cities did build out networks to reach the homes of school kids that can’t afford internet access. This is a good use case, but now that COVID restrictions have been lifted, is it still necessary?

Maybe, because the president just released a ton of money to connect everyone in the USA. Unfortunately, each state will do it the way they feel best, at least that’s my understanding today.

What happened to Smart Tech?

It’s still there, so much so we take it for granted. The problem from a deployment view is that there is no one wireless network to connect. There are several wireless technologies that they connect to. Like SigFox, LoRa WAN, 4G, 5G, BLE, and Wi-Fi. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just that we can’t connect to one wireless network. 

Thanks to Amazon, the LoRa solutions have taken off on a nearly free network using their devices. Pretty amazing, and it’s currently a free network.  

Wi-Fi is still the best solution at home and in businesses, it’s so cheap and free. So easy to maintain, plug and play. The Wi-Fi hotspots are so cheap, most cable modems have them built in. Not a great wide-area solution though.

I was hoping 5G would be the gathering place for all of it, but that is wrong. IoT device makers have too many wireless technologies and 5G is so new, the investment doesn’t make sense, yet. I mean at some point it will, but they released LTE, LoRa, BLE, and Wi-Fi networks.

We have so many devices out there for specific purposes. Smartphone providers have a wide audience and can sell to almost anyone. Meanwhile, IoT device providers have a targeted audience, no matter what niche they’re in. They have to move products to people that want to buy a product for a few dollars, maybe even cents, but in larger quantities. They also need an extremely long battery life. 

So far, 5G IoT has moved at a snail’s pace. I can’t complain because here we are finishing up commercial 5G deployments. Luckily, we’re looking at private network deployments on a very large scale. This should help us along.

Will this be the rise of smart tech on 5G? I hope so, but I have to tell you I am not going to hold my breath. I would definitely turn blue.

Smart City Tech going forward:

I think that we have solid wireless technologies, 4G and 5G, for outdoor coverage. For indoor it’s still the wild west which is fine because people want cheap solutions for homes and small businesses. 

The good news is that the technology is catching up to the use cases, and the costs are making it attractive.

In this new world of local manufacturing, especially in the USA. (Thank you COVID, China, and Russian wars!) We realize how delicate the supply chain can be. It could be disrupted beyond our control and any time. Now, we want to produce more and more closer to home.

So what will be growing? 

Manufacturing will grow. 

It has to include more automation and be flexible. How do we do that? We create machines that can be updated at any time. That means they have to be connected and agile. We should be able to retool at any time and automate that as much as possible. For that, we’ll rely on wireless, digital twins, and software.

As manufacturing moves back to the West, especially here in North America, we need cost-effective solutions. That generally means more automation and robots and fewer humans.

Since local manufacturing will be on the rise, I think that 3D printing may become something we can use in that process, not just to make prototypes. Maybe mass-produce plastics or metals in limited quantities. Why not? It’s viable and has been tested. 

Farming will expand.

We all know larger farms want to become more hi-tech and improve. That will be ongoing for a long time. I mean just read anything about John Deere and what they’ve been doing lately.

But, what about smaller farms?

Smaller farms are also taking off, we want to have the food regional, not global. Don’t worry, we will still import and export food but artisan farming is taking off. Not just pot farms, but food as well. They will need to automate as much as possible. This means sensors everywhere to let them know when to water, feed, and harvest. Not only that but drones are already used by farmers to track everything from moisture in the ground to insect migrations.

Hemp farming is taking off and those are usually newer startups. They are relying on tech right from the start. Most of these farms have tech people running them, which should be good for our industry.

Smart City Tech will continue to deploy. 

In cities, we will still rely on all the sensors for everything from parking spaces, gas sensors, and air quality sensors. That will be expanding, but it will be use-case specific.

Autopay is already taking off, although that has less to do with smart tech and more to do with your smartphone paying someone.

Just like point-if-sale, PoS, systems that are almost anywhere. Again, that’s more a by-product of the smartphone or iPad.

I honestly feel like automation will take off in business very soon. After, think of how much you automate in your home. You have Alexa, Google Home, and smart devices everywhere. I would think businesses will want to do the same at some point, but in a way that makes money.

Businesses and buildings become more automated.

As we move ahead, more and more connected devices will be added to businesses, apartments, homes, and storage spaces. These are all connected building solutions. Not just video, but temperature, meters, alarms, and whatever else people want to monitor. This is more money upfront but in the long run, they have stats and data to look at as well as being able to respond to problems right away versus waiting for someone to call.

Smart buildings will be more and more accepted moving ahead. If you wonder why I say this, just look at your home. How many of you have an Alexa? A smart thermostat? Smart lighting?

I thought so.

Smart campus networks will grow. It’s already here to minimize maintenance crews and security. 

What about the integrators?

So here’s the thing with IoT, it won’t take much to deploy the devices. As a matter of fact, most devices will be put in by the team working with that part of the integration. Electricians and plumbers will probably put in their devices that involve their part of the system. 

Some remote teams will make sure that everything is connected to the network and that they can talk to everything.

What the end customer will need is someone who can design, plan, and test. It shouldn’t be too hard. 

The hard thing will be troubleshooting failures, poor communications, and bad coverage areas. That will be a challenge but not impossible for someone to do. 

So if you get into the IoT game, remember the devices are small and cheap. They are also available almost anywhere, most groups will buy devices themselves.

If you’re doing the wireless network, then you have a niche that’s required, unless they plan to use their existing network. Even then, there could be compatibility issues. So that’s a part where you could step in. Validate ahead of time. 

Most problems can be avoided. If possible, do some testing on their existing network to check compatibility. I am a fan of testing ahead of time if time and budget allow it.

Success links:

Failure links:

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