Every year around this time, various entities dust off their crystal balls and provide some guidance as to what they expect to occur in the next year. The IoT forecasts for 2017 are starting to come out and one of the first takes a swing at the top 10 consumer IoT trends for next year. As a benchmark, U.S. broadband households this year own an average of eight connected computing, entertainment or mobile devices plus another two connected home devices.

Beaconing is getting a boost. The small transmitters that can activate certain apps in smartphones have been installed by the thousands in many retail locations over the last few years. But beacons are but one piece of Internet of Things puzzle, especially when installed in retail stores that may not have the best Wi-Fi signal or any other communication capabilities. A new collaboration of suppliers now is attempting to resolve that by linking the capabilities of various companies together to provide a Wi-Fi and wireless store system to provide high accuracy indoor location services.

It's taken a number of years, but augmented reality finally is getting some traction. One of the initial uses was in real estate, when Amsterdam-based Layar created an AR app so prospective apartment seekers could point their camera at a building and instantly see units for sale or rent, with associated data about each apartment displayed on their smartphone screen.

One of the promises of connected or smart cars is that driving can be made safer. In the short term, auto manufacturers are adding various components of connectivity to new models. For example, Audi is adding a feature that allows the car to tap into traffic light information so the driver will know precisely when a red light is about to turn green.

Many consumers are likely to be surprised finding a fitness tracker or smartwatch under the tree at Christmas this year. But Santa may get a bit bummed later as almost a third of those happy gift recipients ultimately will relegate that wearable device to a bureau drawer, never to see the light of battery recharging again. Almost a third (30%) of the fitness trackers consumers buy or receive as gifts ultimately are abandoned, according to a new study. It's not any better for smartwatches, with 29% of them also ultimately abandoned.

Smartwatch pioneer Pebble is no more. After raising more than $30 million, the wearables maker has closed its door and some of its staff is heading over to wearables market leader Fitbit. It's not really that Fitbit bought Pebble. The reality is that Pebble shut down, has stopped making watches or any other devices and some of the Pebble staff, software and intellectual property were acquired by Fitbit.

Among other transformation, the Internet of Things will, in effect, create a lot more of what I view as digital eyes. Various types of sensors and tracking devices already are being deployed so that distant viewing of people or their activities can be remotely captured. Numerous examples of this have made some headlines recently.

Pokemon Go introduced augmented reality to the masses some time ago and now, for anyone who missed that altogether, there's an easy way to see AR in action, courtesy of the federal government. The White House just introduced '1600', an augmented reality app that provides an interactive, three-dimensional tour of the White House. Anyone with a smartphone and a dollar bill can check it out.

Beacons are heading into mainstream advertising. Not as in shoppers receiving annoying beacon-triggered messages blasted to their phones as they shop, but rather by adding beacon-triggered information to create fewer but much better and relevant advertising delivered later. In a major beacon move, Gimbal, the well-known Qualcomm spinoff, was just acquired by The Mobile Majority, a Los Angeles-based mobile advertising firm.

There may be trouble in wearables land. Based on a number of recent reports, the appetite for smart or connected things that are worn may be softening a bit, at least at the moment. The latest is the widely reported rumor of a $40 million sale of smartwatch startup Pebble to Fitbit.