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Companies Race To Integrate Smart Home Objects

The IoT movement, where manufacturers take formerly offline devices and update them with Internet capabilities, will encompass 20 to 30 billion gadgets by 2020, according to a 2014report by McKinsey & Company. Data from CB Insights show that funding to IoT startups eclipsed $1.9 billion in 2014, a 158 percent increase from the amount invested in 2010. Over the past several years, companies have introduced modified products that could make up the electronically cohesive home of the future: lights, security systems, and, of course, thermostats. But some key questions regarding the IoT ecosystem remain unanswered. Which company or companies will have the most success linking these devices together? Will machines communicate directly with each other, or indirectly via a hub-and-spoke model? And will it be manufacturers who decide which integrations make the most sense, or the users themselves?

Read the whole story at Xconomy.com »

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