With the IoT reinforcing its grip on more aspects of business and consumer applications, genres that were considered low-tech are becoming more robust.

Fremont, CA: Digital keys and smart labels are expected to ramp up more rapidly. 2020 will witness the first light of digital keys struck the market. One of the crucial advancements in Bluetooth low energy (BLE) over the past year has been in the connected car and the utilization of the smartphone as its digital key. Indeed there are various significant players prevalent in the market that have been working to make digital keys more popular, and consumers can use their phones to unlock and start their vehicles after getting within a certain distance from their car. The digital keys will also bestow the drivers with greater wireless control over features like infotainment, tire pressure monitoring, so on and so forth.

In the past years, more automobiles have incorporated intelligent technology in automotive key fobs that allow the users to unlock and start their vehicles without the need of physically inserting the key into the vehicle’s door or ignition switch, in the light of the key fob being present. Presently the technology is progressing in a direction where even the key fob will not have to be present. Many automakers have plunged on smart key technology already. Volvo had announced a smart key technology back in 2016; Hyundai had also announced a smart key system that can work with up to four smartphones, in a USA Today article. A near-field communication (NFC) technology is used in order to identify whether the approved phone is close to the vehicle’s door or not.

The smartphone is expected to eradicate the problem of thieves stealing cars that occurs due to the users leaving the key fobs with the key-based technology in the vehicle. One more low-tech technique going high tech is smart labels, which via the IoT can enable the users to keep track of a product’s usage.

Smart labels and asset tracking is expected to be the most significant drivers for the industrial IoT, and several organizations are to adopt smart names throughout retail and manufacturing. These smart labels take advantage of BLE connectivity to allow users to keep track of a product’s usage. This technology will also be applied with RFID asset tracking to help in determining factors like item locations in inventory and customer foot traffic in the store.

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