The 6 Things CES Taught Us About The Internet of Things

Between the Samsung refrigerator with what looked like a giant Android phone in the door and a demonstration of a concept car with 3D street view delivered on-demand while driving, I realized that few people were talking about how to swap out or fix the techno-heavy innards of these connected devices without having to replace the entire product. When it came to connected cars, Ricky Hudi, executive vice president for electronic development at Audi AG, said he anticipated changing the radios and brains that make the car smart every three years. A Whirlpool spokesperson showing off a connected Jenn-Air oven had no idea how the touch screen and computing elements, which take into account what is in the oven and how you liked it cooked, might be replaced if they failed. But given that an oven is designed to last a decade or more, and the average age of cars on the road today is 11.5 years, having a plan to upgrade the electronics components and upgrade the software in our long-lived connected devices seems necessary.