Simon Fabri

This blog explores different aspects of what it takes to create great tech products. It is meandering journey as I amble around from topic to topic driven by where my curiosity takes me. Sometimes I try to explore different aspects of what makes truly great tech teams, while at other times I try to get under the skin of the latest tech hype or understand what's going on in a particular industry. This blog started off with a distinct IoT flavour, but now is fairly tech-agnostic.

The march of the Smart Home – big numbers ahead!

There is no shortage of forecasts on the market growth for connected devices, and last week BI Intelligence, an analyst firm added their half-penny’s worth to the mix. According to their analysis, the market for connected home devices is set to grow from around 400m units in 2015 to 1,800m units 2019, a compound annual growth in excess of 65%, far exceeding smartphones and tablets, whose time in the limelight as the darlings of the tech world is on the … Read more…

Tesla’s Powerwall – A residential energy game changer?

With hindsight, this week’s announcement by Tesla that it would move into the home energy storage market was so obvious, that that the only question should have been why was there any surprise at all. For a while, Elon Musk, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX tech entrepreneur had been saying that Tesla would unveil a new major product, and that it would not be a car. And so it turned out that Tesla will be launching a residential battery called PowerWall, in two variants with different storage … Read more…

Will the promise of the Smart Home finally be realised as standards converge?

We have already seen how the connected home market is overwhelmed by a morass of incompatible and competing standards, and products made by different manufacturers are unlikely to work together unless they use high-level APIs such as Google’s “Works with Nest”. In the dumb home, interoperability was taken for granted. An incandescent bulb would work with any switch and thermostats were readily interchangeable. The addition of complex app & web based interfaces, the foundation of ‘smart’ systems has created a multitude … Read more…

Frugal Innovation – Doing more with less

Frugal Innovation – “the ability to do more with less” is the title of a recent book by academics Navi Radjou and Jaideep Prabhu. This started off as a book called Jugaad Innovation (from a Hindi word meaning an innovative fix), examining innovation facilities in developing countries, but then found interest in developed economies as companies tried to adapt to consumers’ more spendthrift ways as well as an increased importance being placed on sustainable solutions. Frugal innovation as proposed by the … Read more…

Facebook extends its platform through messaging and ‘things’

I am playing catch-up with the news from Facebook F8 developer conference, but looking at some of the (excellent) press reports, a couple of things stand out as being of interest as providing pointers as to where Facebook is heading. 1. Messaging as a Platform One of the announcements that got most coverage was the release of an API to allow third-parties to integrate their apps and experiences into Facebook. To the cynical (a grouping I sometimes find myself associated with), this … Read more…

Postscapes – A one-stop-shop of IoT knowledge

I have referred to this site in previous posts, but I have been remiss in providing it with the credit it deserves. Postscapes is probably the most reliable and comprehensive guides to the Internet of Things landscape, covering news, companies, and events. For anyone interested in sourcing a supplier, or getting some guidance, this is an essential stop. The open-source / maker space is well covered, including Arduino, Raspberry Pi and crowdfunded projects, and applications are categorised into body (i.e. health), … Read more…

Please welcome the Wireless IoT Forum

It is a new week (well, nearly) so it must be time for a new Internet of Things consortium or standards initiative. Please welcome the Wireless IOT Forum which is being established with William Webb, President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) as its head. Wireless IoT Forum launches to drive Internet of Things development This blog has already addressed the multitude of standards in the Internet of Things space. In fairness this new grouping aims to bring … Read more…

IBM – $3billion in IoT and Weather Company tie-up

While there is nothing particularly exceptional about an Internet of Things – related announcement, this one is pretty big, at least in dollar terms. IBM has announced this morning that it will create a new Internet of Things business, consolidating its existing activities in its Smarter Planet and Smarter Cities initiatives. The numbers are quite striking – $4 billion to be invested over three years, and 2000 consultants, developers and researchers assigned to it. The key capabilities IBM will bring … Read more…

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries – Four years on

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries is the book that spawned a movement, and is widely regarded as the start-up manual of choice by would-be tech millionaires. This is the book that popularised the term Minimum Viable Product, introduced the term ‘to pivot’ and espoused the concept of validated learning as the main measure of progress for tech start-ups. However, notwithstanding its success, I feel that Ries’ approach could be a bit more nuanced. Agile software development lends itself very well … Read more…

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