IoT Coffee Talk
Welcome to IoT Coffee Talk where we talk tech and all things related to the Internet of Things. This program was started by a group of friends who just happen to be thought leaders, experienced practitioners and business leaders in the technology and communications services industries and more. This pod will feature weekly recordings of our casual conversations on the tech topics of the day with the hopes of delivering engaging and thought-provoking insights to our audience. We hope you enjoy program.
IoT Coffee Talk
#315 The IoT Sommelier (100 ways to save humanity with IoT)
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Wow. Wow. Is that like lay it down or something? Awesome. I thought it was. Okay. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I thought it was.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um you know, a friend of mine said, you know, if you're thinking about going to see bands like ACDC or Motley Crew or Van Halen these days, you're better off just going to see a tribute band instead because they sound better.
SPEAKER_03You know what? Rat sounds great. Do they sound great? I saw them a few um I saw them a few um months ago. Yeah. Uh in Anaheim. Bought tickets along with my brother-in-law, and they freaking killed it. Killed it. Uh Warren De Martini and uh Carlos Cavallo. Um he's formerly of Quiet Riot. Those guys shred. They shred, huh? Yeah, I mean, it's like Eddie Van Halen when he was uh, you know, before he passed, I mean he was still killing it, you know? It wasn't like he was a crap guitar player.
SPEAKER_04You're right, you're right, but because I did see Van Halen later in later years when Diamond Dave had come back, and that guy was good for maybe about five songs. Yeah, and that's and that's the problem, is your singer has lost it, just you know, and of course, you know, Dave is just drugged out of his mind, you know. Yeah, but you know, like because Eddie Eddie Eddie kept playing and he was awesome. Yeah but your but your singer, it's like he ran out of gas after about five slots. You know, we're just talking about going to see bands, you know, that you like from the the old days, but maybe they're still touring now. Like if you go to because ACDC technically is touring, and so and and Van Halen, whatever that is, these uh Motley crew, and the the advice is to go see a tribute band instead than the actual band. They'll sound better.
SPEAKER_07Here's a business idea. Let's let's create a company that actually build digital twins for those bands using all their recording in the past and generating.
SPEAKER_05Didn't ABBA do that? Didn't ABBA go on tour with like a holographic version of themselves? Exactly. Exactly. Sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you're right. I mean, that's like going to a planetarium instead of going outside, you're just watching some you know, light show.
SPEAKER_04So like tonight I'm gonna go see a tribute band for Depeche Mode, and the name of the band is Strange Love. So but I've heard that they're great.
SPEAKER_05Sounds a little niche to me.
SPEAKER_04It does sound a little niche, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Just about, I mean, he could be that's the I I can remember going seeing the Doobie Brothers in Sydney, Australia once, actually. I'd be very disappointed to discover they were purporting to be the doobie brothers, but there were no doobie brothers in the doobie brothers.
SPEAKER_05Doobie brothers minus the doobie.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05All you need is the doobie to have another doobie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he's got a few doobies on him. Right.
SPEAKER_07Interestingly enough, depeche mod is not well. I mean, there's two things about depech mod, because I remember being seeing them in the early mid-80s. Yeah, and they were, I mean, they were actually full playback. The the Graham was just pouring discettes into the emulator for the music. So the digital addiction is already there. The challenge is the voice. Because he's a great singer, he's a baritor, three devil. I mean he's a fantastic singer when you write as well. So that's the test. I mean, the music should be easy peasy, but the voice is going to be very difficult.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Um you know who was still killing it a few years ago in Seattle, I don't know if it was the Paramount or whatever, saw Erasure. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I was like, Oh, yeah. The two of them, they're still just killing it.
SPEAKER_07The cure is not bad either. The Q is not bad either.
SPEAKER_05I would say I'll let me throw in a vote for uh if you haven't seen Bob Dylan on tour lately, uh, he actually puts on a really good show. Really good show. Really? Even now on the piano. Yeah, he's on the piano, he's got a stripped-down band, and he just like he spits those words out like nails, and they're just yeah, but you know, come on, dude.
SPEAKER_03He he uh he sang and wrote songs like he was 90 years old when he was 20.
SPEAKER_05So I know now it fits.
SPEAKER_03Now it fits now. He's age appropriate for himself.
SPEAKER_05No, it's a it's a it's a great experience if you can go. Um if you're not into Bob Dylan, don't go, but if you're into it, I would encourage because he he also re-rearranges his songs quite a bit, so it's not okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's in Seattle. I think the best gig I ever saw was Prince at the show books. Oh with an audience of maybe 800 or something. Wow.
SPEAKER_04That's funny you say that. I didn't obviously I saw him at a much bigger thing, the Purple Rain Tour. It was like probably the best concert I ever saw in my life. It was like one of the Broadway shows.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, was he good? It was awesome. It's amazing. Springsteen was like Springsteen. He's Bruce.
SPEAKER_04That's great.
SPEAKER_05How old is he now? 76. Okay. All right.
SPEAKER_01There is a resurgence in live music. I mean, my my eldest kid goes to the last night, Nets band. And these are like they're two thousand they're the equivalent of dance clubs, how dance clubs used to be. You used to be able to go to a nightclub with two thousand other people and dance around. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03No, it's always it it's been like that for a really long time.
SPEAKER_04So it's not snapster.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Basically. That's how they make a living. The content. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01A billion dollars or something out of her last two, some crazy number.
SPEAKER_03Which I think is great because you have to show your talent. You can't get up on stage. You know, nowadays if you're lip syncing or you you're using backing tracks, they get pissed off at you. You know, the the audience will reject you.
SPEAKER_05No, yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_03It's they want talent, they want human talent. They want to know that whoever they pay just paid a thousand dollars uh to watch on stage, these guys aren't just faking it, you know.
SPEAKER_04I think I did see someone do a survey on Twitter about great bands that were horrible live, just no presence at all. And the cars were way up. Okay, I heard the cars were the worst. They literally just stand there. I saw them a bunch in the 80s just like stand there.
SPEAKER_05Play just like the record.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah. I remember seeing this British artist James Blake, who's gone on to be quite he's got quite big, play in in it's a small venue in um in no and he just sat there with a keyboard on this huge, very big stage, no lights, no nothing, just sat there like the keyboard, pressing you know, occasionally pressing a button, motionless for like an hour and three quarters. Like, are you are you on ketamine or something? I mean, like, what's the what's the what is going on with you?
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah, you know, at some point we're gonna have to talk about IoT, but all I want to say is because we're talking about live formats. IoT. That is like the ultimate, yes, we are recording. We better be. Um uh yeah, live music environments are are the ultimate uh IoT. You know, they're constantly digitally twinning and monitoring stuff at that board. And if they do a crap job, the whole performance sounds like crap.
SPEAKER_05But now the sound the sound, even in difficult, like when I was at TD Garden in Boston, which traditionally is just a big cement box, it sounded amazing because they are using a lot of good tech to balance the sound and the reverberation and canceling and all this other stuff. And now it sounds amazing. When you know 20 years ago, it would have sounded awful.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sound is sound is very much like RF, right? It's uh just like RF. And so when you you know, it's funny because I go to NAM show. When I go to NAM show, it's very similar to going and looking at the stuff at MWC, you know, all the RAN stuff, because the radios are basically speakers, right? And um, you know, they propagate in a very similar fashion. Um lower frequencies penetrate, you know, walls better than high frequencies and it it and you know, cancellation, the the whole dynamic of cancellation and interference is all it's I know all about cancellation because one of the stories I can tell you. But uh hey, welcome to IoT Coffee Talk after 10 minutes of talking about like live music. Um that's what people want though. Yeah, remember to take us seriously at your own risk, and uh remember uh to support Elevate Communities, which is coming out very soon. We finally uh got through a lot of the legal stuff. Yeah, much love and thanks to Stephanie Atkinson for uh really pushing a lot of this stuff through.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I'm sure she'll arrive here on the show any moment now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but speaking of uh kicking this thing off, I mean you're writing a book, right, Rob? Yeah. You're on recipes for IoT solutions uh for the uh the sustainable development tools. I've got that would be like a great foundation for elevate communities because think about all the stuff that's going on. You know, we have the Ebola. I I don't I don't know why I'm it's uh the Ebola crisis happening. Uh we have uh God knows, like El Nino is gonna be uh is gonna be an ultra El Nino. I'm sure there's gonna be a ton of flooding. You mentioned something about Colombia or um where was it where they had the big floods. Uh but there are gonna be communities that are gonna be impacted by disasters and you know, does you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, this this book took a long time to put together. You know, it was a bunch of it was a bunch of PowerPoints actually from talks, you know, and you and I've been on those together, Leonard, in the past, somewhere online during COVID or whatever. Um but it but it was just like that light bulb a long time ago. It's like, you know, maybe we could use this IoT stuff or something beyond commercial, you know, stuff like that. In fact, I remember early on, some of our early coffee talks, we started, we would do a whole show on a one of the sustainable development goals. Absolutely uh, you know. Um, but yeah, so it took over five years, and it there's 100 use cases in it, an even 100. It's like a thousand songs in your pocket, right? Um, and so unlike how we've built IoT technologies and digital twin and AI, this one is more about the how-to do it. It's you're right, it's recipes, it's uh it's uh comes with a shopping a hundred use cases and why you're doing, and they all categorized under the different, you know, poverty, hunger, climate change, water, you know, all that kind of stuff. Uh and so yeah, you know, each chapter ranges from anywhere maybe from on the six or seven use cases on the low end to maybe 12 or 13 use cases on the high end. But yeah, each case tells you what it is, why you do it, the outcome, the shopping list of devices, sensors, communicate, all the stuff you have to buy, even prices and stuff like that. And I name a bunch of different companies who make them and say, here's some options, you can do other things as well. And so, yeah, you can be able to give this to anybody. And and they could go be make a positive impact in the world with this stuff.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, yeah, it sounds less like uh a recipe book, more like a wine guide that you refresh every year, right? Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_05IoT Somalier.
SPEAKER_04That's an absolute that's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're gonna call it the IoT Somalia.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but you're right.
SPEAKER_01It's like it has to be the IoT Parista, doesn't it? I mean, isn't that more than a lot of things?
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah, but you know, we've we've spent so much of our lives building this technology and trying to make it self-service and make it easy to use. Uh, and this is the other side of that. This is all right, because like I talk IoT platforms, I don't I say, here's a list of great platforms you can use. They all do the same shit. Um here you're just gonna send this Jason. Here's the simple rules and algorithm you're gonna use to get value. Just stupid simple, no AI is required, you don't have to be some rocket science. It's it's made for just anybody to figure it out, which is how we started this whole IoT at the very beginning. Just dumb, dumb, simple sensor thing. The field is dry, turn on the water, you know, whatever. Everything needs, you know, stuff like that. And so, yeah, it doesn't require, you know, a computer science degree to figure it out. So uh, and that was done on purpose. So yeah. So uh yeah, right now I got the I got the full end-to-end first draft, and so going through editing and everything, and uh the goal is to get it out there on Amazon, um, you know, like in the next month or two, you know, late June, early July, something like that.
SPEAKER_05You're gonna do it like a uh reader version so people can just listen to it.
SPEAKER_04Yes, and by the way, I forgot to send you the email, Pete, to have you be the person who's the reader because you have the best voice.
SPEAKER_05He does sleep in the first him and Bill.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, humbly because Bill, he's like the quiet storm, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Bill's got the quiet storm midnight.
SPEAKER_07You know that you you just need 30 seconds of Pete talking, run that through AI, and then it would generate the whole talk, something like Pete.
SPEAKER_04Oh, oh well, good point. And you know what? I also want to be really clear because I know people are gonna ask questions about this. You know, people will ask, Did you use AI to help you write the book? I did. I did. I used Claude, I used Gemini, I had all the use cases, I used it as a research assistant, you know, because after a while you're having to do heavy research. Like, what are the what are the products I need to put together to do this? What looks like the right algorithm, stuff like that. I would have done that on Google search anyway. And so, you know, yeah, I used I used all of them.
SPEAKER_05It's totally legit.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, but but AI can't be your brain. It doesn't pay as a child. So I mean it was like search.
SPEAKER_04It was mostly like search and research and kind of just being a research assistant to piece things together. Um, and you know what?
SPEAKER_05Absolutely. It was a lot of people.
SPEAKER_03It doesn't bring you though. Isn't that what people were saying like three years ago as your intern? Haven't graduated yet?
SPEAKER_04Like your co-pilot, sort of promoting. It's like your co-pilot. Yes, yes. You know, let's see here. Oh, Mark is on.
SPEAKER_07As along as he's not the key, that's fine.
SPEAKER_04Here, let me share my screen. I'll show you a sample of a use case and how you might go. Hey, there's Mark. Oh, now the show is real because Mark is here. Yes. There you go.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you're gonna send this to me? Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_05Screen sharing, screen sharing.
SPEAKER_04All right, all right. Let's see here. Let's see if I can find.
SPEAKER_03Um in the meantime, while he's trying to do this, um, I just want to give a shout out to Debbie because uh she chairs the human centricity. Um, what do they call it? A track or a uh Um, I don't know. We're working now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're gonna go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um for IEEE. And she she's just a rock star. You're awesome. You're amazing. And that that group nice yeah, is doing some really hard work and thinking. And um, yeah, it's great. I've said it before, it's great watching you in action.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you. Yeah, Lunar drops in. He's so fun.
SPEAKER_05Debbie, where do we where do we go to get to see some of your output? Is it uh your website or what's your what's the call to action?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's a good question. So we're going through, you know, uh the the bureaucratic process to try to get our outputs to be actually public right now. So uh we're on track right now for a white paper. It's supposed to be out sometime this year. Um, so I'm super excited because we created a reference model. Uh, and we want to be able, and Leonard saw it in the last meeting, and we want to be able to put that in the white paper and you know throw it out to the world so people can start talking about it. Yeah, cool. Looking forward to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the funny thing is I feel I always feel guilty um jumping out of the call because I always say something.
SPEAKER_00I don't mind disruption. I like Leonard likes the grenade throw. I'm good with that. Because I mean you have to you have to test out stuff, right? So once it be once it becomes public, like uh there's a process called a par. So once it becomes that, then it is sort of in in the world, and then you know, other people and other companies can come in and like hit the tire. So that helps us early. So thank you.
SPEAKER_05Cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Zero hunger.
SPEAKER_04All right. So it kind of you can imagine each chapter it is related to one of the sustainable development goals. I don't do all 17 of them because not all of them make sense for IoT. Uh some are more policy-based, if that makes sense. Um, yeah, I didn't do things on like gender equality. Oh, yeah. I'm not gonna step in that one. I'm just yeah, this the the but the things that you can measure, right? That makes sense. And so things like water and climate. And so this kind of like right here, you can kind of see, I get I give you a preview, the use cases in that stuff, you know, grain elevator, spoilage, you know, uh irrigation pumps, you know, the lot because a lot of this SDGs are also for, you know, not just giant commercial things, but you know, um, people in poverty, people in villages, people everywhere, right? Uh cold storage for food, soil moisture, you know, on farms, back to the whole irrigation kind of thing, livestock tracking, uh, dairy chiller, you know, you know, like obviously so much of this around foil in this particular use case, right? This particular SDG uh is you know around hunger, right? And so it's all about using gas sensing. You know how like you normally on food they'll say that this food's good until this certain date, but it turns out that date's not very scientific. There's there's sensors that can smell things and tell if it's actually good or not, uh bacteria and things like that. Farm nutrient deal right here, NPK. This is geeky farm stuff, but basically it's like if you like right now, we have uh the straightover moves besides oil, uh fertilizer is a problem.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So um, you know, if you can monitor and know the nutrient level of soil, you may not need fertilizer for a certain area. You know, a lot of times we over-fertilize things, and you hear stories about runoff into rivers and stuff like that, which is not good. Anyway, just stuff like that. And so as you can imagine, these are all very ag looking. It's all about food and hunger, and so other sustainable development goals, like sustainable cities, will look like things you've seen about smart cities. Um, but that's the gist of it.
SPEAKER_05And so and are you developing those scenarios yourself through research? Is that the idea? Yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_04Wow, and a lot of them we've talked about before, you know. No, but but it's not in a friggin' book or a cookbook. But it was never in a book. You're right, it was on a lot of presentations we've done at different events. Yeah, it was it's in a million powerpoints, and so basically, yeah, it was turning slides into words and word.
SPEAKER_01Basically, you know, just a bit next up, Davos. Um, there's an old cookbook I can remember from I probably got it somewhere as well, back from Windows embedded days. Oh, you know, it's like there's a lot Mike Microsoft produced these kind of assets for at great cost that kind of charted the future um and purported to. To predict accurately that cookbook, I'll dig it out and send it to you, Rob, because it would be really interesting to go back. I can remember another similar piece of collateral they built around the three-screen kind of model. Um Jay Alard predicted. Oh, yeah, I remember the three screen sitting on our watching TV, holding our mobile phone with our laptop, etc. And and you know, people looked at it at the time and was like, that's bullshit, that's never gonna happen. And yet, you know, that one was it, that one was a bullseye. That one was a bullseye. Dig out the IoT cookbook, I think, which is what it was called. Um that's good.
SPEAKER_04You know what I didn't show you? Let me show you really quick. I'll show you an actual use case so it makes sense. Um, so you can see what they're all like. I'll scroll to one of them here. Uh come on here. Holy crap, you even have script in there. Absolutely. Everything is in here. Okay, irrigation pump uptime. There are small villages where people are borehole and you're using a hand pump like you're you know, centuries ago. And so that's a thing for lots of people around the world, as it turns out. But that pump can fail, what, right? That's what we do with IoT, uptime. Um, and and all of a sudden they could not have water. So you kind of say, here's the use case. What is that device doing? I'm monitoring the whether pumps running, you know, through sensing. In this case, this is the electrical one. This is not the hand pump. Um, and so if the pump goes out, obviously you don't have water. You could, you know, everybody, everybody in the village is out of water, agriculture is not happening. So I kind of I'll generically talk about devices. I'll generically talk about sensors. In this case, you've seen those clamps you can put on a thing to measure current, you know, that use LoRaWAN a lot of times to tell you current going through, vibration sensors, little things to let you know that this thing's working. I'll talk about the wiring you need to do. I'll talk about the connectivity. It could be cellular, it could be LoRa, it could be Wi-Fi. I'll tell them what kind of power you're gonna use. Do you get to connect to main power? Are you gonna use a uh lithium polymer battery, you know, solar, the enclosure that you need uh to put on this and what the IP rating needs to be, depending on where it is. What do I send to the server? Just a simple JSON structure. This is all it is. Every 15 minutes, you're gonna send this pump running, true, false. What's the current?
SPEAKER_05Rob, this could be a really good um uh if it was there as a resource for projects that people could go to.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_05This should be, you know, uh put these into the project directory for someone to go to to pull down these projects and start implementing. So I will ping you offline on a on a thing that's happening.
SPEAKER_04Well, yeah. I mean, I talk about in the intro the whole deal. This is designed to be, it could either be for people who are out there trying to make a difference, NGOs. It's designed for uh students in classrooms, whether it's the university doing a capstone project or it should be able to work with kids in high school. Uh it's designed. I'm actually gonna put questions at the end of each chapter. I've got friends of mine who are professors, and they're like, Rob, if you put a bunch of questions at the end of each chapter, it can magically turn into a textbook at universities. I'm like, oh, maybe I'll do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um that would be freaking out.
SPEAKER_04Also, I noticed, also, I noticed, you know, I kind of talk about the algorithm. I kind of do, I just keep it simple. I do KPIs, green, yellow, red, you know, everything's good with green. Green is good, yellow. You're it's a warning light, things are heading towards the bad, and red when you need to take action. And then what are those actions? Here's the actions that automatically happen for those different KPIs. So keeping it really simple. Talk about safety with electricity. I talked about the shopping list, you know, what you need to do. Is it an ESP32? Am I gonna use an Arduino or a blues wireless note card on top of a Raspberry Pi? Anyway, I give you specific devices here to go out and purchase to actually assemble this thing and how much they cost.
SPEAKER_01Wouldn't it be great if you could go you could link through to DigiKey or Mauser or something and go, you know, click by the package? Because I think that you know, like this use case in particular is a great example, you know. Building this solution is not the most complex thing in the world. Why are, you know, why are village wells not equipped with this solution today? Because there's not some the the person who's responsible for the well is not an embedded engineer, and there's no place to go buy, you know, put a non-profit or not-for-profit type, you know, you could yeah, you sure you could go, they could go ring up a consulting business and the consultants will turn up in in flash suits.
SPEAKER_06Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_01But there's no time to go buy uh, you know, but go and buy the solution. Right. Going to that thing about students, if you could create kind of a new Mr. Ecosystem, Mark Poos is on the call. If you could kind of link into a student ecosystem of folks who can actually make and configure that solution and into a mouse, and then that would you I just uh the notion of kind of click by and it arrives in the box the next day and you can implement it. No, I love that.
SPEAKER_07And also I think that the because you have a lot of substance here, Rob. And uh and you're going back to the modern discussions, you can probably put a very light LLN on in front of that and kind of create a different experience to access that thing, saying, hey, what is your location, what is your context, what kind of problems you have, and then the source so you have to make sure you put the right boundaries but you could use your experience after that. And that would be then probably to connect that to the what I was making. And the website I can go hold that. So you can do something, I think it's one of the values of this AI and LM is that it creates a new interface. So rather than having people read a book, digest it, and be used to store the information from a book, they can have a conversation about the topic, but you can narrow it down with this vast amount of very created knowledge.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you know, the other thing is maybe dovetail it with some of the stuff Debbie's doing, she's chairing with the human centricity, right? I mean, and you know, data safety is going to be important as well, right? The solution is one thing, but then how do you secure the data? And um, it's not always gonna be like a village that's going, you know, because when we say village, we kind of think, oh, well, it's a developing country or something. We need the these kind of solutions here in even the United States, right? And but how do you secure I didn't see that in your listing, but maybe if it's there, that's cool, but it that could be a great collaboration with um uh the work that Debbie always does.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and just to compliment Leonard, I think as well, I I don't know, maybe I missed it when I check your uh your book before. But uh do you have like partners or something that you are building? For example, you were saying you can pay one dollar per month for uh recurrent per month for cellular connectivity. I don't think that you go with one SIM card and you get that price, maybe. No, maybe that's just some volume. But maybe there are MBNOs who want to partner with you, not one, but many who are interested in saying, hey, if you put this coupon somewhere, you can get this for one year or whatever. And in the other hand, I think now uh as well, mentioning what Dimitri was saying, maybe I I don't know if you partnered with an IoT platform. So you were showing this JSON file. No, yeah, sending that.
SPEAKER_04No, no, I I talked about that. I talk about that like in the there's a foundations chapter, a second chapter that says, hey, throughout the rest of the book, here are the kind in the in this case. I didn't play favorites with IoT platforms. I listed a lot of the major IoT platforms. I'm like, all of them will work. Yeah, this is simple JSON, simple rules engine thing. So I purposely don't have AI in here. There's some areas where you could use ML for things, but I went out of my way to make sure that all these use cases, the outcomes were achievable without AI. Because I want to be able to get to if it's you know junior high kids doing a project, I want them to be able to do it. Um back to the question about particular vendors products, and you obviously you see there, I've kind of gone back and forth on that. I there was a time when I was like, like I started off just saying generically, you need this kind of sensor, this kind of device, this kind of battery, whatever, without calling out any names because I was worried about playing favorites with different companies.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's when you become an an anal. That's like what an analyst does, right?
SPEAKER_04They'll go and uh say, hey, here's a magic quadrant for each one of these solutions for and yeah, you gotta kind of avoid it because ultimately I didn't want people to start like, why didn't you talk about the how come you put this guy ahead of me?
SPEAKER_05What about the microchip yachting?
SPEAKER_04Exactly. And so where I'm at right now is I start off and say generically, you need these types of things to assemble it. And then at the end of each use case, I was like, here is a smattering of different vendors that sell things that and and others that will work just fine. And I'm like, hey, this is not an exhaustive list, but here's a list of vendors who you could use. Here's some pricing. Yeah, maybe the pricing might be wrong. I I went back and forth on should I even include pricing? Maybe I shouldn't. I don't know. Um pricing. Yeah, maybe maybe not. Maybe I should get rid of that.
SPEAKER_07I think it's a good idea because it demystifies the complexity and the cost. The the reason for also not be too tight on the on on the on providing a list of specific vendors is you actually do not want your things to be hijacked. You want it to be universal and simple and figure out the sensor that does that.
SPEAKER_05But there might be a part that you don't know about yet.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, exactly. Then you get the advertising gets on top of it, and people start getting for code, uh, then you become the GDP, uh that can be done with up and so that's it's not I have to do a big data collection and why force somebody to go to because the next day the guy who wrote the books get a phone call from the vendor and the state guy and blah blah blah. Yeah, you need set up there. You want to do that.
SPEAKER_04The reality is I could post this JSON to a S3 bucket in AWS and have just some stupid script do the rule, and there's your IoT platform. Exactly. I mean, it's and so I I call out the major ones like AWS and Azure IoT and PTC, and I talk, and I talked about industrial ones like you know, Siemens and uh inductive automation and all those guys. Uh and then I call out our friends like Losant and Clearblade and some of the others, and I call out open source one like Things Board and some of the open source Eclipse to try to give them a you know, I was like, any of these will work.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, because not even to mention if you're to to to the level of a local city, you know, an old MacBook Air running Ubuntu will do the job.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, or even a Raspberry Pi locally deployed, right? So maybe you can maybe you can say no these uh different grades of uh professionalism that you need, no, if it's a maker, maybe just a Raspberry Pi is sitting there. Right. Uh that could be your server.
SPEAKER_00So the cool thing is, you know, because I do a lot of publishing and books. Um, so the cool thing is like you put it out the way that you want it, which I think is phenomenal, by the way. Um, because a lot of times when people talk about IoT, they don't they don't connect it to the real things that they happen every day. So that's what you're doing, which is fantastic. But then let's say you decide to do a second edition, then maybe that second edition, maybe your only update is are those products or are those prices or whatever. So just a lot.
SPEAKER_02I'm good that you will talking about CRA. Maybe you need to talk about Civil Cyber Resilience Act. Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm sure so maybe you would need like, okay, this is you can do you can use this, but if you want to sell this product, you will need to do XYZ to be.
SPEAKER_04I guess my ask to you guys is I'll I'll as I update it, I'll send you copies of the chapters and please email me your feedback and what's the thing or what I'm playing for, you know. Should I be showing prices? Should I click to DJ Key or Mouser to buy it? Should I just say generic, you need a 5,000 milliamp battery, I'm not gonna tell you who to buy it from. You need a audio sensor, you need a whatever moisture sensor, I'm not gonna tell you where to get it.
SPEAKER_02Maybe I will. I think now it's the best moment where you need uh digital twin of uh Rob Tiffany digital twin to reply all of these questions. So maybe no, you can say if if you have a question, scan this QR code asked to my digital twin.
SPEAKER_04There you go. I love it. That's good stuff.
SPEAKER_03I have an idea. We should start um uh a university, an IoT Coffee Talk University around your course material, and then we should all become honorary, give ourselves uh honorary doctorates. And so we do a friend. Yeah, I'm a fellow. I'm a flying fellow. I love this. Um doctorates, right? Or asking their friends at you know, a provost at a uh you know, a distinguished university, hey, why don't you give me a honorary doctorate? It's like why freaking do it ourselves.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, that's a good point.
SPEAKER_03Dr. Leonard Lee. Uh the cool thing is IoT copy talk.
SPEAKER_04With with 100 use cases, there's a lot of content to slowly feed out to the world over time. Yeah. Posts, you know, podcast articles to, you know. I don't, you know, it I you know, I've done a lot of books. I feel like this one's more important. It's been something because, you know, and and I know some people don't believe in climate change, and I that's fine. But uh I've I've I feel like this is like one of the most important things I've ever done, actually. This whole thing literally is about saving the planet. It really is. Here are all the most important horrible things that are happening in the world, and here's a guide to make a difference in the world, and that's really what it is. And it happens to use some simple tech that we're all good with, you know. Uh, and that's that's kind of my thinking about it.
SPEAKER_03But maybe it's not about saving the planet because I don't think the planet gives a crap about us, it's about saving ourselves. And how we can uh you know, how we can save ourselves from how the planet's going to react to what we're doing, you know, and um, yeah, there's consequences, you know.
SPEAKER_01I've long, long kind of been ranting on about the the notion that you know this set of tools that have been collectively branded as IoT and now it's physical AI and whatever you want to call it, this set of tools is the best answer that humanity has come up with so far for how we align the reality of climate change and the necessity of addressing the drivers of climate change with you know the selfish human goal, economic goal of producing more from less. And I do think that that you know, naively perhaps, you know, when armed with accurate data about what's happening in the real world, people make a bet bet make a better decision, provided that that decision serves both the economic goal of personal enrichment or you know, more societal good delivered from a product or whatever, which is not burning the planet down in the process of getting there. And the thing that always has mystified me is like we've known this for a long time. I mean, we've we've why what stops the village headman you know implementing a solution that monitors the wellhead in the village? What's what's the barrier at the moment? I think education and demystification like this is part of it. But we you know the Raspberry Pi model of you can buy the part you can buy the part, that didn't hasn't solved the problem. You know, it I'm kind of I guess we all are to a degree. Like what's missing? Because you know, the the the that that particular use case can't be served by a company that's trying to generate massive profit because there's not massive profit to be made.
SPEAKER_04That's right. That's right. That's why this book is not from some big company selling their IoT platform, because there's no money to be made. This it's bigger than us. It's not, yeah. I mean it's more important than commercial and wealth and stuff like that. I know this sounds cheesy, but you know, I mean, I've got use cases. I'm in monitoring industrial output from cement plants and industrial stuff. I have stuff uh use cases on measuring glaciers. I mean, I've got everything decline of wildlife. Um, I mean, you name it. And some people are like, oh God, you're one of those people. You know, and I I totally get it.
SPEAKER_01But you know money's not gonna save us. I mean, I um though I hate to make light of it, go ask one of the the folks who lost a $50 million house in Malibu, you know, to the Malibu fires, whether or not having $50 million in the bank saved their house. It didn't. You know, and and money don't save you from floods, it doesn't save you from fires, it doesn't save you from the effects of global war.
SPEAKER_03Money's useless. Survival instinct, though. Survival instinct and selfishness.
SPEAKER_01I mean, your own But we're really crap at having a survival instinct as human beings. We you know, human beings are very, very good at responding to an immediate threat. You know, there's there's a dinosaur run away in the other direction, so it's gonna eat you. But long, you know, long gestating you know, threats like climate change, we're phenomenally bad at reacting to that from a self-preservation perspective. Just terrible.
SPEAKER_00I mean we look at the Well, because we don't want to anticipate, right? So it might not happen.
SPEAKER_01You know, it might not happen, but hey, you know, let's put our head in the sand and pretend that it's not.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean, when you have movements uh like sustainability that get overrun by let's go and populate a dead planet.
SPEAKER_00I mean, or as I say I'll say more there there's more water at 7-Eleven than there is on Mars, but more slurpes, too.
SPEAKER_07But but there is less ego.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, there's almost no ego. Absolutely, absolutely, you know. I think this book would have been a bigger hit maybe five or so ten years, I don't know, years ago.
SPEAKER_03It will be a hit.
SPEAKER_04It'll be a hit. Lately, it seems like people have decided to punt a lot of people I don't see on board with climate stuff anymore. Or like, ah, it turns out we were wrong. Bill Gates came out and go, oh, maybe I was wrong, and I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Until their house washes away the cold supplies and stuff. So wow, maybe I should care about this.
SPEAKER_04I've got use cases measuring sea level rise. I have deals measuring mangroves. I mean, it's crazy how much is in here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but you mentioned um village, which is really about communities, right? And communities will have to save themselves, you know. Um local governments, right, that want to make sure that they protect their communities while not uh having to tax their communities tremendously for whatever uh you know insurance that they need to either buy or implement in order to uh you know um survive disasters, right? Uh or events. Uh you know, I think the this whole mission of elevate our communities, I think, is going to be a good one. And I I think it's just gonna be essential because wait until all these floods starts uh start happening in some of the smaller communities that don't have all the resources, they can't they don't have fifty million dollars to not give a crap about you know their home in Malibu if it burns down. These are folks that have no recourse, right? These are communities that have no recourse, and I think there's plenty of demand there. You know, this isn't a like you said, it's not a a get rich quick scheme that uh that is gonna attach to this at all. I mean, this is all about insurance. This is about uh this is all about protection, and these are things that we you know um fundamentally disregard because we think it's about saving the planet instead of saving ourselves, right? And this is I think the saving the planet, uh people fund there's a you know a good group of people who don't give a shit about it at all. But they will be in that community. That group, there are people who will be uh who give a large crap about saving themselves, right? Uh and so I think maybe the way that uh you make people care about this is flipping the script on how you talk about sustainability. This is like protecting you. One of one of you just blurted out crap, she'll knock your ass out of not think twice about it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you're right. Yeah, one of you blurted out on a the dull deal about, you know, is this profitable or can I make money on it? Uh and so one of the things I'm definitely gonna, if when possible with each use case and outcome, is if there is some way that it shows that it's gonna save you money or make you money or something like that, I'll include that as well. So they don't so they'll feel like, oh, okay, I guess I can do this awful thing to help the planet because it turns out it's gonna save me money.
SPEAKER_01For a lot of the use cases, I think you can build in, you know, one of the challenges with with aside from the myriad issues around the injection of politics into science and the fact that you know our sense of community is being fundamentally eroded by you know some of the developments in social media, etc., such that you know people know no, they don't feel community that with an extra neighbor because they may have a political difference. You know, well, wait until the wait until the proverbial dinosaur comes to get you and then see. Um that is just helping people understand the externalities a little bit more. Yeah. Because when you look at the impact the profit or loss of a of a climate incident, yes, you it there is the direct stuff that you can measure, like the house burn down, but there's also all of the externalities, the pollution, the impacts of that pollution on local communities, that you know, and I think uh uh the the well one way to think about IoT is as a way to capture a broader data set which allows you to factor in those externalities and actually have a true picture of you know the value of solving a particular problem. You know, it uh we've tried for years to do this calculating the value of human life, etc., and trying to use those calculations in environmental assessments and and so forth. But I think that they're very much at the macro level, Leonard, like you said, you know, that it's a you know, I don't care about saving the world, I actually care about saving you know the world I live in. But IoT is maybe a way of making visible those externalities a little bit more um so that people can understand the true value and the imperative.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, anyway, I hope I get lots of feedback from you guys when I send you copies of this. I really if you have the time, appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's incredible. Love to take a look at it. I yeah, uh when I worked on the um the uh US Department of Commerce IoT advisory board, we were all knee deep in stuff like this because we were like, how can IoT help in you know all just all realms of life? And so we even had a guy on there, like an agri guy. Uh so we're talking about farming and equipment and all this other type of stuff. So I think what you've done is you've like put meat on the bones of that as opposed to it being a pie in the sky discussion. So it's good, very good.
SPEAKER_04Oh, thanks. You're right, because so many of the things we've talked about and written about has been about how to do IoT, or here's this product I have, let me tell you all about it, or let me tell you how IoT works. Every here's how digital twins work. And you're right, instead of applied IoT, which is what really matters, because I don't think we spent enough time teaching people actually how to use this tools to to actually do something, you know. Um, you know, obviously people like like obviously uh Adam Denzian, you know, doing when he did his hackster IO was a good thing, and you see some of those kind of things were helpful for sure.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, people don't buy into technologies, they buy into outcomes, you know. Yeah, buy into IoT or AI or all those things. Yeah, totally. It's like, you know, I I I think we've done ourselves a disservice as a as an industry by but focusing on the thing that we understand and love and and you know, the toolkit that we're using to solve a problem, rather than you know, why did you why do you care about whether or not you're able to understand the quality of water coming out of the ground and you're you know what's the outcome that you're buying? And I think uh the more that you can articulate use cases as you're doing in the book around that outcome and that value, yeah, less less you know, um kind of motive feels to people, you know, who aren't yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, totally right. Because people I always uh our friend used to always say people don't want technology, they want stuff that works. So if you're talking about out outcomes, uh as Alistair said, I think that's that helps people understand and kind of back into a solution or whatever it is they want want to do. But then also I think um when we're thinking about these types of things, for me, it's like we have to, you know, for for me, and I I I think of AI in the same way. I think of AI as AI is a a thing that helps you do a thing. So I think IoT is the same thing, right? So it's the thing that helps you do a thing. So we need to talk more about the thing that we wanted to do and then how IT or you know, whatever technology enables us to do it.
SPEAKER_04Right, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. Fun, fun. Yeah, that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_03So hey, uh, I I I just find it really funny that uh uh you know it looks like Pete's trying to say something with his background.
SPEAKER_05Oh yes, I am. Oh for those that for those that haven't already booked their tickets or train tickets. There's still time.
SPEAKER_03June 8th and 9th.
SPEAKER_05It's coming up. It's like in a week and a half. Yeah.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, but just a second, before we we do that, we we go there. Because I I think you said something interesting, Anista, but I think it's beyond outcome when it comes to what Rob is saying. It's really about impact. Because the problem is when you start to talk about outcomes, you go back to all profits, reduced cost, efficiency, blah, blah, blah. Here we are in a space where people are just not even aware that there are this technology that can impact their life directly. So I think the position is a little bit different here. Because there is a risk of commercialization where you always go back to the profit idea as opposed to fundamentally what Rob expects expected. So I just wanted to make that point so I interrupted you a bit. No, no, no, fine.
SPEAKER_05I don't disagree with you, Dimitri, but I think an outcome could be awareness. That could be an outcome. Yeah, so awareness is if it's not commercially viable, yeah, then no one will build and actually.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, that is correct, but it's the awareness of the impact at uh at a reasonable cost that Rob is carrying, as opposed to hey, you're gonna save billions on your plantation, so do the IoT, which we've been trying to sell quite a lot in your cloud. So that's a different thing.
SPEAKER_05That's something we'll be talking about in London in June 8th and 9th.
SPEAKER_07And I'm sure you will, because I mean edge is super important for that. Because I do believe that. That's why I was mentioning the MacBook Pro and Ubuntu, because a lot of these projects should be able to run locally without any cloud crap. Yeah, and so it's good to pay for cloud.
SPEAKER_04Just like Mark said, you should be able to run this on a Raspberry Pi. That could be your server for the village.
SPEAKER_07You don't need to be your own cloud to run an IoT platform if you seem.
SPEAKER_02Actually, there is a community in Brazil who is doing this. They are uh creating images for Raspberry Pi just for the people who live in the forest in Brazil, so they can have like a school in a Raspberry Pi, so all the materials and content of Wikipedia and the school for children in a Raspberry Pi. So they have different images for Raspberry Pi, so uh just distributing them among the community. They can have the content that they need without internet. Actually, in Kenya, I think there was as well one initiative that creating like a local network in schools without any cellular connectivity or anything, allowing to have like the content locally to multiple tablets that they had in the schools.
SPEAKER_07So that was as well a super interesting and that's a very cool idea for elevator communities as well.
SPEAKER_02I love that.
SPEAKER_07We could have some kind of pre-build packages on Ribbd Pi for to elevate our communities. Yeah, you would just drop that on your existing network and suddenly you get a space. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You know, I I I don't know, it was last week uh Larry and I were talking, I was just also, you know, the whole the whole gist of the whole thing was, you know, this all the countries in 2015 signed up for the sustainable development goals, and they said that by 2030 we would achieve them. We're not gonna achieve any of them. And and I remember, I think I mentioned it to Leonard, my wife was she was looking and she's like, this could be a this could this could be for kids. You should have funny cartoon pictures on each use case showing this. And then I was sitting there thinking, I was like, the adults really fucked it up. We didn't get it done. Maybe this book is for the community. Yeah, this book is for the kids because obviously we didn't get it done.
SPEAKER_03Dude, I'm telling you, my my kid, you know, he goes to that code ninja thing, right? You'd be amazed what they teach these young kids these days and what they're able to do. And um, my my kid, he can build anything, it's like scary. So yeah, and there are a lot of other kids in these programs that are very interested in those types of things, and yes, yeah, at that early age, you can impress them on the importance of not only saving the planet, but saving humanity, you know. Yeah, kids are pretty resilient.
SPEAKER_04So I mean, I I mean I remember at Microsoft when you know Hari Tartobi, you know, said, Hey, I want to go do this code.org thing, and Satya's like, Yeah, go do it. And it was for kids, you know, and my wife has taught that in her to her fifth graders, you know, the code.org stuff. Yeah. So uh yeah, you never know.
SPEAKER_03You should call the book Daddy and Mommy Screwed It Up here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, really. Oh my gosh, uh Tim Saves the World. Well, IoT. Timmy saves the world with IoT. I like that.
SPEAKER_02Maybe you will need to delete all these JSONs and put the scratch the scratch code.
SPEAKER_04Scratch, yes, you're right. That's right. That's that's a good idea, actually.
SPEAKER_03It's a good idea. We love scratching all these days.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we need another catch of thunder to come and tell us that we screwed it up. I think that really is, you know, uh I'm surprised that the younger generation is not much more angry than they are because you're angry.
SPEAKER_03They're booing, they're booing yeah, they're booing uh Eric Schmidt and other people.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, all these commencement addresses, tone dev commencement addresses. Uh you know, it's fucking ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe on target. They're going after AI, whereas they're you know, you know, AI might actually be part of the answer. Because to your point, Leonard, you know, my 11-year-old can write you know Nintendo 64 level games using.
SPEAKER_05I think I think the anger is AI in service of a you know monopoly, monopolistic, yeah, yeah, patriarchal, you know, um US centric, frankly. Right, where there's like six or seven people with all the money and they control AI. I think that's what a lot of folks are pushing back against, not the actual code that you can do.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you won't.
SPEAKER_05No, you won't. Just my take, my humble take. Oh, that's a good tank. It's a good tank. Which is something we'll be talking about in London on June 18th.
SPEAKER_04Of course. Oh, oh, oh, and also I've also I've also reached out to to our good friend uh Vanky. Um and we're gonna we'll we'll do a thing about this book and the whole subject at the Things Conference. Are you going? I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna go. I'll be there. We're gonna do a whole presentation on this whole subject there.
SPEAKER_05We're gonna do a whole edge AI neighborhood thing at the Things Conference. Yeah, he'll be in London June 8th and 9th, actually. He will be there literally. So excellent.
SPEAKER_03The ultimate sales guy. Yeah, I'm gonna be there too. I'm gonna be presenting on Save Yo Ass with IOT. Very nice. Yeah. Catchy title. It's gonna be standing for away, people. Yeah, the mouth is. Huh?
unknownHuh?
SPEAKER_02Is it put your demo where your mouth is? Oh, good idea. I should like that. Yeah, I was thinking.
SPEAKER_05No, they have it's a big demo focus, which is gonna be good. Yeah. So I love that. September 22nd, 23rd, Amsterdam. Be there. We will all be there. We're gonna have a blast.
SPEAKER_03Actually, I thought it would be really, really good. Yeah. Yeah. Um is a good event. Yeah, I already bought my ticket and uh uh flight there, so yeah, we need to do that too. Yeah, before oil prices spike even more. All right, who wants to take us out? It's great seeing all you guys, by the way.
SPEAKER_04It is great seeing all you guys. Debbie, do you want to take us out?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh, you're gonna make me do it. Okay, uh, let's see. Please make make sure I don't forget anything. First of all, thank you all, gents, for being so amazing, for for uh having such gusto to continue to do this show week after week for all these years. And I just I it's a pleasure for me to be here uh to talk with you all. So uh a big brain energy happening here for sure. Uh, but for IoT Coffee Talk, uh, this is definitely the sign-off. Uh, we want to make sure that you help us support what was it? The it was elevate communities. And uh definitely, you know, Rob's book looks kick-ass. I want to definitely uh check it out and give you some feedback there. Uh Pete apparently is doing something in London, he says, in a couple days. Uh that Leonard's gonna be there, and yeah, and so yeah. Well, tune in next week. I think I forgot a whole bunch of stuff that I'm supposed to be saying, but it's good. Save yourself. It's all good.
SPEAKER_04Study.
SPEAKER_03All right. Remember, like, share, comment, and we'll see you next week, everyone. Take care. Ring that bell. Thank you.
