Instead of purchasing thousands of industrial sensors or tracking tags, enterprises lease the hardware capability. The XaaS provider handles the deployment, battery management, over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates, and eventual hardware replacement. This completely removes the risk of obsolescence—a critical advantage when dealing with rapidly evolving protocols like Wi-Fi HaLow or 5G RedCap.
Unlike the consumer and enterprise markets, IoT devices are often deployed for a decade or more. Devices are disparate in nature, ranging from small, unsophisticated sensors to highly sophisticated devices like connected cars. Devices are often deployed in very remote geographies, like offshore oil fields or distant farmlands, while other devices are often moving across geographies. Manually swapping out or updating these devices is extremely costly and time consuming.
Omdia observes that enterprises are leaning more heavily on devices and components that allow for software to be updated over-the-air (OTA). By decoupling software from hardware, enterprises can overcome many of the limitations of hardware centric deployments, including extending the lifecycle of devices. Not only are enterprises able to extend the lifecycle of devices but also increase the functionality of devices.
A simple camera used for intruder detection could be enhanced over-the-air with software for object or facial recognition, giving the enterprise a more nuanced view of their environments. This data could be integrated into larger building security systems and used to provide selective access and permission for ingress.
