LAS VEGAS—Look around. How many computing devices do you see? Your phone, probably; maybe a tablet or a laptop. Your car, the TV set, the microwave, bedside alarm clock, possibly the thermostat, and others you’ve never noticed.
Much of that computing isn’t doing much while segregated into individual devices. But many of these gadgets have the potential to get smarter by connecting to their fellows, which in turn could open the door to a brave new “Internet of Things.”
To see where that might be taking us, there’s no better place than the annual gadget extravaganza formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show—and now simply as CES.
The show, which starts Wednesday in Las Vegas, is the place for companies large and small to show off new connected devices. These range from the seemingly trivial—for instance, smart umbrellas that message you if you leave them behind—to the undeniably helpful, such as navigation devices that display driving directions onto your windshield so you don’t have to take your eyes off the road.
And while traditional consumer electronics such as phones and TVs account for about half of revenue in U.S. consumer tech, they aren’t growing as quickly as newer connected devices, according to the Consumer Technology Association, the organizer of CES. For instance, smart home devices, such as cameras, thermostats and locks, are expected to grow 21 percent to 8.9 million units in 2016, or $1.2 billion in revenue.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute, a division of the consulting giant McKinsey & Co., the value created by connecting the world’s devices could hit $11 trillion annually by 2025, a mind-boggling sum that represents over half of U.S. economic output in a year.
Most of the value comes from industrial uses—like cleaner air from smarter energy use and fewer factory shut-downs due to smarter maintenance. But trillions in benefits are expected to come from consumer-bought products: safer streets because of better-driving cars, robots that take care of household chores and health and fitness trackers that let us know when our bodies need medical attention.
“There’s a big value in avoiding pain and suffering,” says report co-author Michael Chui.
