The falling cost of sensors, computing power and data communications has revolutionised the ability to remotely monitor equipment, systems and products. We call this trend Smartification – the process of connecting dumb products to the internet. Smartification is not new, but the pace is accelerating (IOT) and market requirements are changing. 

A key challenge is that many pieces of equipment are remote, unpowered and communicate wirelessly. Power management, reduced power consumption and extending battery are key needs. In a connected product it is often the data communication that uses the most power. Tackling this means using techniques to reduce amount of data sent back and forth. This trend runs counter to the "dumb client + powerful server model" that is prevalent today in many products. It means an edge computing approach - where some or most of the analysis is carried out on the remote device. We see this becoming increasingly important.