Periodic Reporting for period 1 - InnSpect IoT (Providing Quality of Experience Through Automated Testing of Devices)
Reporting period: 2017-02-01 to 2017-07-31
InnoWave Technologies is a young Portuguese company. We have developed InnSpect, a product that enables the automated testing of devices through a graphical user interface, and that replicates user interactions in a number of devices, to assess the quality of experience (QoE). QoE is defined as a user’s degree of delight or annoyance towards an application or service and is a direct consequence of the user’s expectations, personality, and current state. In an age where people are more likely to abandon a product or service instead of complaining about it, QoE is taking on a featured role in companies to curb churn rates. And while QoE is not easily assessed, because it is inherently subjective, it is now considered as a business imperative by many companies, to try to restrain the loss of revenues due to this switching economy that in 2014 amounted to a staggering $6.2 trillion (USD) across 17 markets. By enabling the automated QoE testing of devices, InnSpect thus presents itself as an important tool for companies to improve the overall QoE of their products and services, and increase enterprises’ competitive edge.
During Phase 1 of the SME Instrument we set out to identify the specific use-cases and target clients for the new IoT adapter. We found that there is tremendous potential in the smart living and smart health sectors, especially in the EU, where current demographic trends are leading to an aging population and to an increase in urbanization. These two trends are already creating societal and economic concerns which will likely aggravate unless a systematic approach is taken to solve them; cities have serious problems in terms of mobility and energy consumption, national healthcare system are close to their breaking point, and elderly people face the dire prospected of spending their last and considerable years in assisted living facilities or alone, without assistance. The EU emphasis now is on the development of sustainable systems that can cope with Europe’s changing demographics and urbanization and the IoT is seen as a crucial technology to alter the current paradigm.
Our market analysis also revealed that while IoT solutions are on an hype, developing complete end-to-end solutions is very costly, requires knowledge in a multitude fields and relies on digitally skilled workers which are at an worldwide deficit, which is still expected to increase; IoT is still a new technology and IoT applications are mainly still only implemented by early adopters; to decrease overall costs of development of IoT solutions, suppliers of IoT solutions need to shorten the time to market and mainstream their applications. These will be the main value propositions of InnSpect IoT. By enabling the automated testing of IoT devices in a user-friendly manner, without the need for digitally skilled workers, InnSpect IoT diminishes developing costs and shortens the time to market; furthermore, in the age of the switching economy, where consumers will abandon a service or product before complaining about it, reliability of new technologies is an imperative for their success, and thus the assessment of the QoE of a product prior to market launch is a clear necessity for new IoT applications and will help cross the chasm between the early adopters and early majority groups of users. Additionally, our research has shown that InnSpect IoT answers to the market gap of a simple automated testing solution capable of performing cross-device testing that anyone can manage (no need for specific coding skills due to natural language interface). However, to keep ahead of your competition we need to quickly drive InnSpect IoT to market launch and to that end we developed a business plan, which includes detailed work and financial plans for the development and commercialization of InnSpect IoT. We identified initial target market segments and clients and based on that we determined the typical use cases and the future required features of InnSpect IoT that still need to be developed. Finally, we established a business model which defines sales channels and a pricing strategy.
Overall, we estimate that one year after the initiation of the technical development, we’ll have a first prototype for the IoT adapter and communication board firmware, with another year taking place before having a solution ready for market launch.
Our market analysis also revealed that while IoT solutions are on an hype, developing complete end-to-end solutions is very costly, requires knowledge in a multitude fields and relies on digitally skilled workers which are at an worldwide deficit, which is still expected to increase; IoT is still a new technology and IoT applications are mainly still only implemented by early adopters; to decrease overall costs of development of IoT solutions, suppliers of IoT solutions need to shorten the time to market and mainstream their applications. These will be the main value propositions of InnSpect IoT. By enabling the automated testing of IoT devices in a user-friendly manner, without the need for digitally skilled workers, InnSpect IoT diminishes developing costs and shortens the time to market; furthermore, in the age of the switching economy, where consumers will abandon a service or product before complaining about it, reliability of new technologies is an imperative for their success, and thus the assessment of the QoE of a product prior to market launch is a clear necessity for new IoT applications and will help cross the chasm between the early adopters and early majority groups of users. Additionally, our research has shown that InnSpect IoT answers to the market gap of a simple automated testing solution capable of performing cross-device testing that anyone can manage (no need for specific coding skills due to natural language interface). However, to keep ahead of your competition we need to quickly drive InnSpect IoT to market launch and to that end we developed a business plan, which includes detailed work and financial plans for the development and commercialization of InnSpect IoT. We identified initial target market segments and clients and based on that we determined the typical use cases and the future required features of InnSpect IoT that still need to be developed. Finally, we established a business model which defines sales channels and a pricing strategy.
Overall, we estimate that one year after the initiation of the technical development, we’ll have a first prototype for the IoT adapter and communication board firmware, with another year taking place before having a solution ready for market launch.
Currently, InnSpect allows for the testing of set-top-boxes, smartphones, and websites. We were looking to assess the opportunity in the development of an Internet of Things (IoT) adaptor for our base product InnSpect. The IoT is a disruptive technology and it will drastically change the way we live and work. The IoT connects the physical and digital realms by using the data collected by sensors embedded in “things”, and creating a fabric of connections between multiples devices and humans to enable the emergence of smart environments which sense, analyse and adapt to conditions in real-time; these smart environments have the potential to greatly simplify our lives, making then safer and reducing waste to create more environmentally friendly and sustainable ways of living. To ignore the future impact of IoT across all business sectors is to not think ahead and this why we thought that we should look into the potential of an IoT adaptor for InnSpect. This new product, InnSpect IoT, will be able to test connected devices and the next generation of IoT equipment such as smartphones, wearables or smart home devices (fridge, washing machine, air conditioning and home security).