A new report has revealed security, connectivity, and data collection and analytics are the top three concerns for Internet of Things (IoT) developers. Thirty-nine percent of respondents cited security as a concern, 27% for connectivity, and 26% for data collection and analysis.
The 2020 IoT Developer Survey conducted by the Eclipse Foundation was completed using the responses of 1,652 individuals, submitted from May 28 to July 10.
There was a significant increase in connectivity from 2019, where 22% found it to be a top concern. The Eclipse Foundation concluded that this increase indicated that figuring out the right connectivity solution for a particular use case is difficult.
The growing interest in data collection and analytics (up from 21% in 2019) is likely linked to the rise of privacy concerns, according to the report. “Although analytics tools are mature, it is difficult to determine how to collect and manage data in accordance with regulations while protecting the customer privacy. Operational technology specialists fear that sending raw telemetry streams outside of the corporate firewall could compromise industrial secrets,” the Eclipse Foundation wrote in the report.
The fourth concern for IoT developers is performance, at 24%, which shows that the market is moving beyond proofs of concept and initial deployments and now focused on optimizing these systems for user experience.
The survey also revealed that open source is a key element of the IoT landscape. According to the survey, 65% of respondents experiment with, use, or contribute to open source IoT projects.
Artificial intelligence was the most frequently used edge computing workload, at 30%, the survey revealed. This was followed by control logic (29%), data exchange (27%), and sensor fusion (27%).
Another finding of the report is that agriculture is the leading industry focus area for 26% of the respondents. Other focus areas include industrial automation, education, automotive, and smart cities — all at 21%.
