Checking the Pulse of IoT: The Things Conference 2024 (with Wienke Giezeman)

The Things Conference 2024 took place in Amsterdam from the 24th to the 25th of September marking the seventhinstallment of what is becoming a key barometer for the state of IoT. neXt Curve had the pleasure of meeting up with Wienke Giezeman, Co-Founder of The Things Industries in the Metaverse with our Vision Pros to talk about where we are on the IoT hype cycle and discuss the main takeaways from The Things Conference which drew over 1,500 IoT practitioners, and solution providers from around the globe.

Find out more about The Things Conference at https://www.thethingsconference.com/

Wienke & Leonard discuss the following topic that mattered from The Things Conference 2024:

• Wienke and Leonard prove that they are Metaverse pioneers (2:05)
• What is the state of IoT according to Wienke and The Things Industries (2:54)
• What was the main theme The Things Conference 2024? (5:57)
• Scaling The Things Industries and the IoT growth trend (7:49)
• What was new with The Things Stack (9:10)
• The myth of wide area LoRaWAN (12:00)
• The need to revisit LoRaWAN (13:48)
• Has IoT reached the Plateau of Productivity or are we still being enlightened? (14:34)

Connect with Wienke Giezeman at www.thethingsindustries.com. Hit both of us on LinkedIn and take part in our industry and tech insights. 

Please subscribe to our podcast which will be featured on the neXt Curve YouTube Channel. Check out the audio version on BuzzSprout - https://nextcurvepodcast.buzzsprout.c... - or find us on your favorite Podcast platform.  

Also, subscribe to the neXt Curve research portal at www.next-curve.com for the tech and industry insights that matter.

Chapters

• 2:05 Wienke and Leonard prove that they are Metaverse pioneers
• 2:54 What is the state of IoT according to Wienke and The Things Industries
• 5:57 What was the main theme The Things Conference 2024?
• 7:49 Scaling The Things Industries and the IoT growth trend
• 9:10 What was new with The Things Stack
• 12:00 The myth of wide area LoRaWAN
• 13:48 The need to revisit LoRaWAN

Transcript

Wienke Giezeman: 0:06

Next curve.

Leonard Lee: 0:09

Hey, welcome to this next curve. Rethink podcast episode, where we break down the latest tech and industry events and incidents and things right into the insights that matter. And I'm Leonard Lee and I am real. This just happens to be my virtual avatar, but I'm the executive analyst that next curve joined by the illustrious Vinky. I think I got that right.

Wienke Giezeman: 0:40

Yeah, I was

Leonard Lee: 0:41

right. Thank you. Follow up on that because I heard your pronounce your name and I'm almost certain I got it completely wrong. But yes, he is the founder and CEO of the things industry. And he's joining me to talk about the past, present and future of IOT, as well as the things conference, 2024, which took place last week in Amsterdam and is now in the books. It's another one in the books, right?

Wienke Giezeman: 1:08

Yeah. I'm a co founder CEO. So together with Johan we we started as the video you saw of the event last week we both highlighted the progress and what we see in the industry, some trends some optimism and yeah, it was great. It was a great show last week.

Leonard Lee: 1:27

Yeah. Well, congratulations. But before we get started, remember to like share and comment on this episode and subscribe to the Rethink podcast here on YouTube and on Buzzsprout. Take us on the road and on your jog and listen to us on your favorite podcast platform. And also make sure to check out. The things conference, there's always great material, great insights coming out of this conference. And also check out the things industries.

Wienke Giezeman: 1:57

Thanks. Thanks Leo. It's great to be on the show.

Leonard Lee: 2:02

Yeah. And we're pioneers, right? We're metaverse pioneers or spatial. Maybe we have to explain that

Wienke Giezeman: 2:09

we're using the Apple vision pro for this and personas. And I think yeah, this is cutting edge technology. And I think what we also should share is that this is the third try of recording. So hopefully what is it? What's the saying in the U. S. So three times a charm or what is it?

Leonard Lee: 2:24

Three times the charm. Yeah, maybe it's usually three strikes. You're

Wienke Giezeman: 2:29

out. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Leonard Lee: 2:31

So I think you have the wrong analogy going on there, but that's okay. In

Wienke Giezeman: 2:37

the Netherlands, there's actually a saying where like the third time, right? So

Leonard Lee: 2:41

really, okay. Well, you guys are obviously much more pessimistic and we love baseball is really what it boils down to, but Hey, before we dive into The things conference. I just wanted to get a sense from you. What is the state of IOT? Because one of the things that. I I really regard you in is as a barometer for where we are in a hype cycle, cause you and I have had conversations. You've had me up on stage at things conference, at virtual, as well as in person a couple of times. And you always ask me to come up there to talk about hype. Right. So where are we on the hype cycle? I know that you've seen a lot of stuff, the things industries has seen a lot of things in the industry and how things have progressed over the years. Where do you think we are?

Wienke Giezeman: 3:36

Yeah, I think we're climbing like towards this plateau of productivity and there's been a lot of write offs in IOT investments and. Yeah, what we presented is that we see our adoption of our platform growing 60 percent year on year. So this means that we're now at 2. 3 million devices that are registered to our software. And that's really a lot. And if you think that every device for a customer, like we have the IoT platform, That manages lower end devices. And for a lower end device, which is a low power, like a sensor that delivers telemetry data, like for water metering or facility management or temperature or whatever, the total cost of ownership of one device is on average 300. So we're adding about a million devices every year. So that means that our base is adding 300 million in, in. And IOT spend every year, because you have to do that spend up front, right? Like the majority of that total cost of ownership. And I think what we see is that the analysts all conclude that the IOT market is growing 20 percent year on year. And that's a really nice growth in in times which are uncertain. And that's just really nice. And we're very optimistic about the future and what we shared is still all the Pockets of value you can unlock with IOT by disclosing operational data that is not disclosed yet. And we get some in opening keynote and examples that, for instance, in the niche of facility management within IOT, you see a niche of refrigerator monitoring. And for instance, in the U. S. they're already, Eight million commercial fridges, which all have a basic business case to be monitored because they're all some way or the other. They are regulated. So adding sensors, low power sensors, lower wind sensors to these refrigerators always drives a business case. And yeah, we're very optimistic. And when next year the appetite to, to do more. Capital spending returns when interest rates are lower. Yeah, we're much more bullish on growth on the midterm than all the analysts are. I do believe that we were going to see a much, much larger growth. So yeah, the event is more like a reflection. And looking forward in the lower end industry globally. So we have people from 70 different countries yeah, it's very well distributed across the world of wherever the visitors come from. And we discussed these kinds of things and all these solution makers are there.

Leonard Lee: 5:54

Now let's dive into the. Things conference itself. So this year what was the theme? What were you guys talking about? What was that thing that you guys are trying to impress on the industry?

Wienke Giezeman: 6:08

Yeah. So the things conference we started as 2018, it's a event, like a user event for a company, the things industries and the theme was the total cost of ownership of IOT. And it's been a highly underestimated and. Maybe even in sometimes downplayed topic because the reality is pretty harsh, right? The reality is harsh and IOT, we've seen in the past that we're not too optimistic about the costs you basically have when you do an IOT solution or. Or a low power sensor solution. And the only way to solve that, to be real about it and to work together as an ecosystem, just to make sure that we shave off that total cost of ownership. Because the more we shave off that total cost of ownership, the more we make it scalable. One of the contributions or kind of product launches that we did was vertically integrating the IOT gateway that comes with and the management platform launching almost like a cradle point proposition where the IOT gateways is self configuring and managed product, including backhoe where we expect that we can shave off the total cost of ownership for a deployment around 30%. I had a lot of partners that followed that theme and had all kinds of talks. You can see them on YouTube. It was really great for a thousand people. And it was a really great event.

Leonard Lee: 7:23

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And just so everyone knows, I am not upset. It's sometimes this vision pro squishes your faces face a little bit. So I'm actually very happy. So don't get it twisted. Yeah. And getting back to the conference one of the things that I thought was really interesting, I did listen to the keynote and this year I wasn't able to go, I was really sad that I wasn't able to participate, but so one of the things that Johan mentioned was you guys have 4. 5 billion, is it billion messages a month? Is that true?

Wienke Giezeman: 7:58

Yeah. Yeah. So these are 4. 5 billion messages per month. And it's yeah that's a lot. It's seven, what he said, 1700 per second.

Leonard Lee: 8:07

Yeah. Something like that. And,

Wienke Giezeman: 8:08

And LoRaWAN is a technology where you're very careful Whatever you're sending a message or not. Right. So the kind of information density of these messages, it's not like an IP packet or something, right? It tells something about a meter or about a fridge or about a mousetrap or about a. If there's maybe like a water leak detected, these kind of like data points are there. So that's very interesting. And this is all end to end encrypted. These are our customers data, of course. So we don't access those, but just shows it's real.

Leonard Lee: 8:40

And then it wasn't just a couple of years ago that you guys breached the 1 million device mark? Yeah,

Wienke Giezeman: 8:47

it was only like two years ago. Yeah,

Leonard Lee: 8:49

two years ago. And so you guys are at that point. Three now, right? So no, I just wanted to make sure everyone knew the growth trajectory and what you guys have experienced in the last few years, which is, it's encouraging. I think that lends to some of the forecasted growth. IOT that you expressed earlier on. What were some of those new things that you guys announced? I mean, you mentioned a gateway and I have a question about the gateway a little bit later, but what are some of the other things that you guys announced?

Wienke Giezeman: 9:20

Yeah. One thing that we announced was we're constantly updating the platform. So what we provide with the think stack cloud is a platform where you connect the IOT gateways for Loro and the IOT devices, and we provide that. We manage the network of the security and the devices, and I make sure that you have a very simple bit pipe or like data pipe into your IT systems where you want to process the telemetry data. We improve the ease of operations of your network by for instance, just adding a network operation center with a lot of fine grained data where you can. Yeah. Look at your network as an admin and then make changes or. Confident that your network is running. We highly optimized our user experience, typically in telco or like these kinds of systems. A great UX is not the number one priority, but we still feel that it's very important because we have thousands of users for, of our platform. And that means that if you're building an IoT solution, it should be very pleasant to use because you have enough challenges on your plate and we launched a plus version where we add some premium features that typically are used just to give you even more autonomy and more ease of use and higher qualities of service.

Leonard Lee: 10:28

Okay. Now, one of the themes are actually a couple of themes from the previous year. That were emerging

Wienke Giezeman: 10:36

so we saw

Leonard Lee: 10:37

a lot of devices that come out with many different types of backhaul options. And then we also saw satellite become a big deal simply because satellite in the last couple of years has become a pretty hyped thing. Topic, I think a lot of it is due to the advent of Starlink and their network, their satellite constellation and network services. So how are things going there? Are those themes continuing to evolve and how are they shaping up in the conversation? Yeah. How did they shape up in the conversation this year?

Wienke Giezeman: 11:15

Yeah. So they shipped up in a conversation that our partner Lacuna space is actually launching a very interesting satellite relay, which allows existing Lora one devices to relay their message to a satellite. So actually like a small IOT gateway that is battery powered, that can forward that message, which is super nice because you have this massive ecosystem of more than 1200 different types of Lora one devices that are all hardware compatible with this solution. That's super cool. That's going slower than expected. But but yeah, that's like space. It's a tough game, I guess. And I'm partially, I'm also very much looking forward to launch anything with a cellular backhaul because that would be really cool. Would it be a fantastic combination together with LoraWAN? Yeah.

Leonard Lee: 11:55

Yeah. Yeah. And so there's also this emerging conversation about private LoraWAN networks in concert with the public or, the more Yeah, you're right. What's going on there? Was there any talk about that? What are you seeing in terms of the trends related to private?

Wienke Giezeman: 12:15

Yeah. So the trend actually is that private is the end market. Basically, what I believe is where it's going towards is more what they, what we then call Laura land or LP land. And the majority of our deployments, like the vast majority, more than 90 percent of the majority are not wired. When setups, so there are stores like small supermarkets, restaurants, and they have all these small use cases with great business cases. And, but if you have a lot of stores, maybe a lot of supermarkets this is where the skill comes from. I do believe that in general the low power wide area network. So the LP one category, what we call it, right. There's other tech. I think that's a Very challenging to work. And what we see is that where you bring in your own connect, like Laura, when connectivity through a gateway that can have a sender back, hold, it can have an ethernet back or wifi back. Cool. That is basically where Laura, when really shines.

Leonard Lee: 13:10

And I think that's an interesting bit of commentary because so much of the. Focus on Laurel when has been on the wide area network and public or more of a, let's say, a public model or a shared model type of conversation. And I think this notion that low power iot. It really starts with private actually makes a lot of sense. I just don't think that it's perceived that way outside of the IOT community or even in in certain circles of the IOT community,

Wienke Giezeman: 13:45

it's really hard, right? Like you can only tell people like that. about it technology once and probably the things they first heard about it, they remember the most. But Laura when is evolving and a lot of IOT technologies are finding their niche.

Leonard Lee: 13:58

Yeah.

Wienke Giezeman: 13:58

So I think maybe the next year conference would really be revisit Laura when, because you if you're true, curious, like we have a lot of people in our ecosystem that are curious about new technologies and then they were going to look for a problem, which is perfectly fine. That's what technologists do. But now it's almost, I feel like everybody that had heard of Loro An, she okay, so, but what is it now? I heard of it five years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, but like, where does it shine right now? And so maybe that's like a great theme for next year's event. Rediscovering

Leonard Lee: 14:28

Loro An, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the thing that I love about Gartner is their hype cycle. I thought that was well thought out, although sometimes it's misapplied and not used properly or perceived properly. But what you're describing is that ramp up the plateau of productivity, this enlightenment that, okay, this is really what this technology is good for at the moment. And going forward. And you've shed all of the nonsense that really does a lot of damage because people just disregard things that disappoint them. This might be a great time. And I think you guys are. Landing on practical use cases, practical approaches, and I've personally had the opportunity to witness that transformation, the journey that you guys have been taking. And so it is encouraging. So let me know next year, if you want me out there talking more about the hype and what's next, the plateau or productivity that everyone can anticipate as everyone starts to, Really look at value versus all the theoretical nonsense. So

Wienke Giezeman: 15:35

definitely you're invited for sure.

Leonard Lee: 15:39

All right. You know what Vincent, it's always great to have you on. It's been a while since you've been on a next curve podcast, but we probably should do this more often. You want to take a moment to tell our audience how they can get. In touch with you, engage with the Things Network, as well as the Things Conference 2024, which I have a funny feeling is going to be about revisiting, and maybe even rethinking LoRaWAN.

Wienke Giezeman: 16:04

No, so if you want to get in touch with us and know about our service, get to thethingsindustries. com. And for the Things Conference next year, that's our user event, which is thethingsconference. com. So it's pretty easy. We just launched a new product, as I said, the LoRaWAN gateway. So we even made it easier for you to get started and to explore and to revisit LoRaWAN. And and on LinkedIn, you can just find me on my name. There's no, nobody else called Wienke Fijsman, so that's super easy.

Leonard Lee: 16:34

I love that. Well, it's great to have you on. It's a

Wienke Giezeman: 16:37

great, unique identifier. I,

Leonard Lee: 16:41

yeah, exactly. That's amazing. But everyone, thanks for, and really appreciate it. Please subscribe to our podcast, which will be featured on the next curve YouTube panel, check out the audio version on buzzsprout and you can also alternatively, Find us on your favorite podcast platform, whether it's Apple Podcast or Google Podcast, and also subscribe to the next curve research portal@www.next-curve.com for the tech and industry insights that matter. And until next time, we will see you in the Metaverse.

Wienke Giezeman: 17:23

Yeah.