IoT Opportunity

Yeah, SWKS business must be slowing because some journalist thinks smartphone sales from a company that makes $50B in rev a quarter is gonna see slowing growth in iPhone sales.

https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/11/is-this-future-of-the-int…

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iAmMikesUserName,

Thank you for posting that article. It really is jam packed with great reference material, not just for the column, but the added bonus of the well-placed referral links which are pure gold.

First there’s a nugget that includes a 140+ page tomb of white papers from Deloitte on Tech Trends for 2015:

http://d2mtr37y39tpbu.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015…

And another nugget referring us to a presentation covering the evolution of sensors, which includes a bunch of cutting edge materials and devices on the market right now and a growth projection to where we will be in 5-10 years.

https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/classes/sp14/cse291b/notes/Janusz_Br…

One quote from the presentation was a real kicker: Rapid market evolution is expected to replace 40% of current Fortune 500 companies within 10 years by companies we didn’t hear about yet

That’s companies we may not have even heard of yet today becoming 40% of the Fortune 500 tomorrow (or perhaps we have heard about them and we’re invested in them now?)

Then there’s the article you pointed out itself:

Experts predict that, by 2022, 1 trillion networked sensors will be embedded in the world around us, with up to 45 trillion in 20 years. With this many sources of data for all manner of purposes, systems will be able to arrive at fast, accurate decisions about nearly everything. And they’ll be able to act on those things at the slightest prompting, or with little to no action on your part at all.

Sorry for pulling out some of these quotes and highlights for those who have already read the article and perused its links. I get excited whenever I see great information. Thank you so much!

Best,
–Kevin

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Great takeaways! On the topic of companies taking over that we haven’t even heard of yet… Imagine turning down millions from Elon Musk because you think you are building something better by yourself in your garage… and at 26 no less. Simply amazing.

http://electrek.co/2015/12/16/elon-musk-offered-a-multimilli…

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driv…

As a side note, I know MBLY was talked about here in the past. Citron (regular short seller) said MBLY is their short idea for 2016 in part due to the competition from other companies in the self driving car space.

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Yeah, SWKS business must be slowing because some journalist thinks smartphone sales from a company that makes $50B in rev a quarter is gonna see slowing growth in iPhone sales.

I appreciate your sarcasm. However:

  1. It is not a slow growth that they are projecting, but negative growth (shrinking). This is how I read it. (Correct me if I am wrong).
  2. Regard the IoT, I was heavily involved with IPv6. This notion of sensors and devices all over the place was there as early as 2008. The phys ability is there since then. Why isn’t that happening? Maybe because the need is still not there… Everyone can create such presentation but I still need to see a convincing use case for IoT that people will be willing to pay $$$ for it.

This notion of sensors and devices all over the place was there as early as 2008. The phys ability is there since then. Why isn’t that happening? Maybe because the need is still not there… Everyone can create such presentation but I still need to see a convincing use case for IoT that people will be willing to pay $$$ for it.

In the conference call the Skyworks CEO said that he could walk into your house right now and probably find 25(!) Skyworks products. That’s not just IofT products, that’s Skyworks products.

Why isn’t that happening?

Maybe it is and we are just not aware of all of it.

Saul

In the conference call the Skyworks CEO said that he could walk into your house right now and probably find 25(!) Skyworks products. That’s not just IofT products, that’s Skyworks products.

I listened to the presentation twice, maybe I should listen to it the third time…
Yes, certainly a food for thought, I’ll try to read about IoT more. Maybe I’ll change my mind.

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I’ll try to read about IoT more.

One good source is John Bates Thingalytics, not so much for the leading edge of this week’s technology, but for what the impact is for businesses.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015I010AK?keywords=john%20…

I listened to the presentation twice, maybe I should listen to it the third time…

Hi shukisasson, you are correct, it wasn’t in the conference call, it was in the Raymond James conference that I referenced in the thread Skyworks: Stand up and cheer!

http://discussion.fool.com/skyworks-stand-up-and-cheer-32026028…

In fact, in the last post in the thread, I see that Robert quoted that very quote:

“If you let us walk through your home today I guarantee we would find 20-25 SWKS devices”

Saul

Those like me who are still marvelling at the wonders of the water closet can guarantee the only devices to be found are lobster-pots and fishing nets which my wife mends by the fire.

Guests are asked to leave their telephones in the old privy at the end of the garden where their warbling cannot be heard from the house owing to the crash of waves on the shore, so it still has a use. I suppose you might find ‘20-25 SWKS devices’ there.

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Why isn’t that happening? Maybe because the need is still not there… Everyone can create such presentation but I still need to see a convincing use case for IoT that people will be willing to pay $$$ for it.

Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. IoT is a very misused, abused and grossly misunderstood term. The types of things IoT is often used for is very mundane in most cases… for example, do you see meter readers going around checking your electric meters nowadays? Probably not, because most electric meters are read remotely thanks to IoT technology.

Do you ever check the traffic cameras before you go on your merry commute? Do you have security cameras at home or at your business with remote access? Do you use a smart watch, heart rate monitor or smart weight scale? Do you have programmable lights? VOIP phone? Do you have a NEST thermometer? WiFi in your car? How about a WiFi pocket camera? A smart TV? A WiFi DVD player? These are all examples of consumer IoT gadgets, and many people just don’t realize they are using IoT when they use such devices - and yes, people are paying $billions for them.

But there is so much more to it. Remote sensing is really one of the big but silent areas where IoT is making huge strides. Whether sensing for environmentals, such as temperature, moisture, pressure, altitude, attitude, etc. or various tolerances in specialized equipment such as jet engines, train tracks, boilers, etc., or the whereabouts of fleet vehicles and their fuel economy and engine condition. The commercial and industrial uses are virtually limitless.

We have already entered the IoT era. It’s no longer a question of whether IoT will happen, IT HAS HAPPENED. The question now is where does it go from here and how big is the potential market?

-----
Invest wisely my friends
CMFSoloFool
Ticker Guide: NTGR and OTEX

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We have already entered the IoT era. It’s no longer a question of whether IoT will happen, IT HAS HAPPENED. The question now is where does it go from here and how big is the potential market?

According to the below article the IoT started as early as 1982…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things

Also there is some adoption curve that needs to happen. The world has to move to IPv6 according to this article:

To a large extent, the future of the Internet of Things will not be possible without the support of IPv6; and consequently the global adoption of IPv6 in the coming years will be critical for the successful development of the IoT in the future.[43][44][45][46]

Since I worked on IPv6 I know that 2008 was supposed to be the year for IPv6 (That what the US Government was pushing for). Still it did not happen.

The time when the vision of IPv6 is going to take off is when your desktop/ laptop is going to have an IPv6 address… we are not yet there.

Plus, if you Google top IoT companies you will see names like Cisco IBM and even Qualcom. SWKS is not there. That of course says nothing since the revolution hasn’t started yet and the winners are not yet announced.

IMHO depending on significant future earnings of SWKS coming from IoT is speculation at this point. Moving to LTE is their major force for moving the EPS up in the next years. If the smartphone market growth is strong then SWKS is a great investment. If on the other hand there is weakness then SWKS earning will suffer.

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Meanwhile - Sierra and now CalAmp keeps on delivering the business - it is happening all around us…
http://seekingalpha.com/news/3003066-calamp-closes-up-7_2-pe…
Ant

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That of course says nothing since the revolution hasn’t started yet and the winners are not yet announced.

We can agree to disagree, I guess. In my opinion the revolution is well under way and will continue to pick-up steam in the coming years.

The IPv6 issue concerns Internet addressing limitations, which will eventually become a challenge, but in the meantime many innovators are working around these issues with various aggregators and collectors, where individual machines communicate on low-power, simple, private or proprietary networks, and only the aggregate information is pushed out over the open Internet by collection agents. That is one of the reasons why low-energy bluetooth is gaining momentum - short range communication over low power bluetooth enables sensors and other devices to conserve energy and reduce cost. Most applications don’t need every individual sensor broadcasting over the Internet, that would just be a lot of useless noise. Instead, put an intelligent collector in front of them that can aggregate and even highlight specific patterns, and only send meaningful processed information over the Internet. This way hundreds of sensors can be monitored by a single collector/aggregator, requiring just one IP address.

When you start doing the math you can see how billions of sensors and devices can participate in the IoT within existing IP address limitations, pushing IPv6 out further and further.

I’ve written other posts on various boards about categorizing IoT in the hopes of demystifying this abused buzzword. You may find some of these discussions on the SWIR boards.

-----
Invest wisely my friends
CMFSoloFool
Ticker Guide: NTGR and OTEX

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I’ve written other posts on various boards about categorizing IoT in the hopes of demystifying this abused buzzword. You may find some of these discussions on the SWIR boards.

CMFSoloFool, thanks for the enlightening explanation.
To your point SWIR is a perfect example of how hard it is to pick winners in IoT. I think TMF picked SWIR as one of the big winner of IoT. The stock price action in the last two years is telling a totally different story.

To the point: Since it is really hard to pick winners, why do you think SWKS is going to be a winner?

Why do you think IoT earnings can compensate for a potential EPS loss that is a result of a probable smartphone slowdown?

In any case I wish you and everyone on this board Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

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When you start doing the math you can see how billions of sensors and devices can participate in the IoT within existing IP address limitations, pushing IPv6 out further and further.

Very well said Solo. Not every device will need a static ip address and most if not all of the IOT devices will be assigned a dynamic IP address on their owners own network.

Andy

Very well said Solo. Not every device will need a static ip address and most if not all of the IOT devices will be assigned a dynamic IP address on their owners own network.

Nothing new about this concept, it is called NAT. NAT has its own major deficiencies (like single point of failure and so on).

NAT is making the internet fragmented and fragile. With IPv6 all these issues will go away. If IoT was such a major force, IPv6 would have been pushed really hard. It will happen eventually but maybe in a longer time frame than we think.

Nothing new about this concept, it is called NAT.

Shuki, I think you are arguing my point for me. Of course there is nothing new about it. We have been using it since the 1970’s because it works.

NAT is making the internet fragmented and fragile. With IPv6 all these issues will go away.

There is nothing new about IPV6 and they have been making these same arguments for it for 23 years. When I was taking Cisco courses back in 1993 they were pushing for IPv6. The reason it hasn’t happened yet is because the market does not want to move to it. As far as issues going away with IPv6, we will just have more issues to solve. Nothing ever solves all your problems.

If IoT was such a major force, IPv6 would have been pushed really hard.

We may never see IPv6, because even with IPv6 you still have to support IPv4. The costs of maintaining both might force a new protocol to be applied. In fact I would argue that IPv6 is not going to be implemented, or they would have already gone to it. I would not look at IPv6 as the bell whether for IOT. IOT is all around us and they are implementing it with IPv4. When the tipping point comes for another Internet protocol, IPv6 might not be what we go to.

Andy

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Hi Shukisasson,

it is called NAT

You are obviously educated in networking, so this may be a bit elementary. Network Address Translation is a technical term for the process of remapping IP addresses from one IP address space to another. It is often used to map IPs from a private network to a public network. It has a very useful function in Internet communications, and it is very relevant to the topic. However what I was referring to is slightly different.

In many cases of IoT the low level endpoint doing the sensing does not need to be directly addressed over the Internet, in fact many do not use Internet protocol at all. Instead these devices use a much simpler, low energy protocol to communicate with a smarter device, which in turn processes the information, aggregates it with info from several other devices, and then securely streams all that data over just one IP address to a host somewhere else.

As a very simple consumer example take a heart rate monitor or Fitbit, which do not use IP at all. Most such devices use one of several protocols invented by Garmin. The monitor can communicate with other devices that listen on that protocol, such as treadmills and ellipticals, and they may even communicate with a smartphone over a wire or a USB interface, or via Bluetooth. The monitors themselves cannot be directly addressed over the Internet, but their data is collected by a smart device and relayed over the Internet to a cloud system that collects and presents the data visually for consumption by the user. This is a very common example of how IoT allows millions of devices to generate data that streams over the Internet without the devices themselves ever having direct access to the Internet.

Another good example is the Ford plug-in electric vehicles, which generate several GBs of data per hour from hundreds of individual battery and engine sensors, but much of the data is processed onboard and then in-turn transmitted in bursts when the car comes in range of collection stations. This is a very effective way to use network bandwidth efficiently and reduce cost. While each and every battery pack on the car has sensors and ability to communicate, you would not want those batteries independently transmitting their data over the Internet, you need to collect and aggregate the data locally, process it, and summarize it into the context of the overall range and health of the complete vehicle.

There are a variety of these proprietary protocols in use already, and then there is Bluetooth, which is vying to be a leader in IoT. There are still a lot of hurdles to overcome, not the least of which is IP address limitations (hence the importance of IPv6). But it is no different than any other major technical innovation, there are always going to be fits and starts.

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Guys whilst you are a boat load more technically oriented than I am, I found the following article an interesting summary of some of the competing potential IoT sensing standards…
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3721816-the-brewing-iot-stan…
Ant

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Guys whilst you are a boat load more technically oriented than I am, I found the following article an interesting summary of some of the competing potential IoT sensing standards…
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3721816-the-brewing-iot-stan…
Ant

Thanks Ant, I didn’t understand much of the article, but I can see that it would be very useful for people with a little more background because it was clearly written well organized. Nice article.
Saul