Better IoT (formerly known as #iotmark and a continuation of the 2012 Open Internet of Things Assembly) is a community-led effort to make a free, accessible, open assessment tool aimed at startups and SMEs to help them design better connected products (internet of things).
We have developed the tool based on principles that we think address some of the most pressing issues in the early stages of development: privacy, openness, interoperability, lifecycle, permissions, transparence, data governance and security.
These sound technical but they have an impact on business models, customer support, end of life care, customer experience and more and are are important to consider in the early stages of a business.
Why are we working on this?
Badly designed connected products have a negative impact on consumers, at different levels:
- Bad design leads to security flaws at a technical level.
- Bad business practices lead to aggressive, hidden, data-driven business models that can block access to a product over time.
- Consumers are given limited choices in buying connected products as most will suffer from:
- short-lived production runs
- limited duration of service
- high rate of failure of products
- limited long term customer service
- limited repairability and as a consequence an increase in e-waste.
We believe these problems are not insurmountable and by sharing openly what we think is good practice we can encourage not only large organisations to do better, but also more crucially smaller startups and SMEs who are the lifeblood of the internet of things industry.
Contributors:
Chris Adams (@mrchrisadams), Boris Adryan (@borisadryan), Alasdair Allan (@aallan), Thomas Amberg (@tamberg), Pilgrim Beart (@pilgrimbeart), Cédric Lévy-Bencheton (@clevybencheton), Chackshu Saharan (@Ignius_IoT), Mark Carney (@LargeCardinal), Dries De Roeck (@driesderoeck), Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino (@iotwatch), Martin Dittus (@dekstop), Louise Hugen (@louisehugen), Laura James (@LaurieJ), Konrad Komorowski, Jan-Peter Kleinhans (@JPKleinhans), Albrecht Kurze (@AlbrechtKurze), Dominique Guinard (@domguinard), Geusseppe Gonzalez (@GeuseppeGC), Matthew Macdonald-Wallace (@mbconsultinguk), Graham Markall (@gmarkall), Adrian McEwen (@amcewen), Joanna Montgomery (@joannasaurusrex), Anthony James Munns (@bitshiftmask), Selena Nemorin (@digiteracy), Victor Petersson (@vpetersson), Alison Powell (@a_b_powell), Peter Robinson (@nullr0ute), Mark Setrem (@ukmoose), Mark Simpkins (@marksimpkins), Andy Stanford-Clark (@andysc), Gavin Starks (@agentGav), Funda Ustek-Splida (@fundaustek), Bob van Luijt (@bobvanluijt), Duncan Wilson (@djdunc).
