Internet of Things: Forget the big numbers, what are the best IoT gadgets?

It's a market that likes to talk numbers - 34 billion connected devices by 2020, global investment of $7.3 trillion (around 4.8 trillion, AU$10 trillion) by 2017. Blah blah blah. It's guesswork - all of it - and peddled by vested interests and crystal ball-gazers with very little evidence.

The Internet of Things depends on great ideas for products that fire the imagination. So where are they? We know about the phones, the watches and the tablets, but they account for only 10 billion of the predicted explosion in IoT devices. What are the other 24 billion?

We won't be covering them all in this article - obviously enough - but here's a selection of our top picks for the IoT gadgets which are going to turn heads.
Ready to automate everything? The WeMo brought old lamps into the IoT, and trying to do the same for - well, anything with a button - is Microbot Push. A low-energy Bluetooth device, the Korean-made Microbot Push is a robot finger that can be attached to anything, and be wirelessly commanded to push a button.

The coffee machine, the kettle, light switches, the answer button on your phone... anything that needs a physical interaction from you to switch it on. It's an idea in its early stage - it certainly won't get everything onto the IoT - but it's an intriguing way to bring the physical into the digital arena.