[JoeAltmaier]

It only requires a bootstrapping application. Enough chips get made for that niche, the chips get cheaper. That opens up other applications. And so on. It's a 'natural process' of economics, with a time-constant related to marketing and chip manufacturing cycles. Used to be 20 years, but its getting shorter all the time.

[normloman]

I agree that the chips could be cheaper with the right killer app. It's a matter of time. Tech "thought leaders" think that time is now. I think it's still a few years off.

But what solves the issue of being useless? And what is that price-lowering killer app gonna be if IOT means shoving a wifi adapter in your blender?

[JoeAltmaier]

No need to be very useful at all. Just convenient. We got remote controls for our media devices, to save us getting off our butts. Now its a way of life - channel surfing.

[normloman]

Yeah but that convenience is very useful. I think we're just talking past eachother. Remotes make watching tv way easier. The question is whether some of these internet enabled devices make things easier or not.

[JoeAltmaier]

Yup. And we won't know until someone shows us how much we were missing by not having them.

An internet-connected coffee pot or dishwasher is hard to appreciate now. But what if they alerted and called a service guy if they failed? That would be handy. We'd come to hate the non-connected device that didn't appear on our 'household service dashboard' app. It'd be like having a Victrola in the house.