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IoT Platform Comparison: Six Vendors to Keep Watching in 2021

We compare some of the most exciting IoT platforms on the market right now, the ones that check all the boxes when it comes to innovation: Balena.io, Particle.io, Thingworx, Siemens Mindsphere, Adamos, and Record Evolution.

What Is an IoT Platform?

An IoT platform is the middleware and the infrastructure that enables end-users to interact with smart objects. They function as the software bridge between the hardware and application layers. The IoT platform orchestrates the movement of data between IoT devices and IoT applications, providing application-level capabilities for humans to interact with the IoT system. 

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10 Best IoT Platforms for 2021

The rapid growth of the Internet of Things over recent years has brought countless examples of smart devices, cloud services, and applications to life. As their complexity increases, the need for IoT platforms   ̶  solution frameworks that streamline IoT application development   ̶  also grows. In their recent report, MarketsandMarkets estimated that the global IoT cloud platform market will grow from USD 6.4 billion in 2020 to USD 11.5 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12.6% during the forecast period.

The number of IoT platform vendors shows similar dynamics; as estimated by Statista, there were about 620 publicly known IoT platforms in 2019, twice as many as in 2015. Big companies from different industries, such as Amazon, Bosch, and Deutsche Telekom, have joined the fray, all trying to increase their footprint in technology markets. However, a bigger vendor doesn’t always mean a better solution. When choosing the best IoT platform for your business, it is important to consider the total cost of ownership, usability, speed of implementation, etc. as much as strong feature sets. What is considered to be a great IoT platform, in general, may not be the best option for your case.

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How Manufacturing and Lighting Solution Companies Are Benefitting From IoT

Lights today have become more than simple means of lighting up the dark. During their evolution from a simple filament bulb to today’s connected LEDs, lights have become more efficient and intelligent. 

Digitalization Makes New Services Possible

Products and services in the field of lighting and building-services technology are taking the form of subscription models. The ongoing process of digitalization is driving the trend. Known as ‘X as a Service’ (XaaS), ‘Light as a Service’ (LaaS), ‘Security as a Service,’ and ‘Safety as a Service,’ this trend offers benefits for both providers and customers. Digitalization is not only driving this development but also giving rise to new business models offered by IoT service providers.

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Smart City With an Event Streaming Platform Like Apache Kafka

A smart city is an urban area that uses different types of electronic Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to collect data and then use insights gained from that data to manage assets, resources, and services efficiently. This includes data collected from citizens, devices, and assets that are processed and analyzed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, utilities, water supply networks, waste management, crime detection, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services.

You may also like: Smart Cities: Who Wins and Who Loses?

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Solving Common IoT Challenges

Learn more about solving common IoT challenges in this post.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a hot subject amongst technology companies today. According to Forbes, we expect to see over 20 million connected devices by 2020. As a result, we will begin to see a lot more IoT services and solutions to current IT problems.

But IoT solutions come with challenges. Among those challenges, IoT solution providers fall in the realm of connectivity, power, security, and integration. We'll look at each of these challenges and potential solutions to them in this post.

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How to Choose the Right IoT Platform: The Ultimate Checklist

Choosing the right IoT platform is a complex endeavor. Whether you’re an IoT hobbyist, experienced developer, or senior executive, the landscape is massive and confusing. This article aims to clear up some of the complexity and offer a quick and scannable guide of the IoT platform landscape. It also provides criteria for how you should evaluate IoT platforms based on your needs.

"We’re a cross-functional, fully-integrated, full-stack, serverless, hardware agnostic, AI, IoT platform that offers you infinite infrastructure . . ." said every confusing IoT platform website ever.

What Is an IoT Platform?

In the simplest terms, an IoT platform is an integrated service that offers you the things you need to bring physical objects online. It needs to be capable of supporting millions of simultaneous device connections and easily allow you to configure your devices for machine-to-machine communication.

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Home Automation Using IoT

What really would compel someone to actually develop a complete IoT-based home automation system? Could it be the need to improve the safety of your home, or could it be the desire to live a Jetson-like life that millennials always dreamt of?

It is difficult to say. Often, it is even more difficult to visualize the technology that is required to build a home automation platform.