Five ways the Internet of Things will change your mobile experience

Last updated: 05 July 2017

Ten years ago, cutting edge mobile phones had two megapixel cameras and screen resolutions of 320 by 240 pixels. You could just about get some music on them, but only in select formats, and the App Store was just a twinkle in Steve Jobs’ eye.

These days, we are inseparable from our smartphones, and each iteration brings new features that bind us ever closer. The Internet of Things (IoT) is set to have a profound effect on mobility, and in our newly launched Gemalto Netsize Guide, we investigate the impact this new level of connectivity will have on our lives. Here we take a quick look at five ways the IoT will affect mobile:

  1. Super-smart phones

With Siri a pioneer a few years ago, and now Microsoft’s Cortana available, it’s safe to say the age of the personal assistant will soon be upon us. The Internet of Things will make smartphone assistants so much more useful, as they will be able to draw on data from many different sources to make planning and adjusting our daily lives that much easier. We’ll also be able to have the answers to almost anything immediately at our command.

  1. Payments

NFC payments are hitting the mainstream with Apple Pay now launched in its first overseas market, and Android Pay and Samsung Pay to come. We might soon be able to pay for things in places other than shops, such as bike hires in towns, or unmanned petrol stations in the middle of nowhere. Operators might also be able to seize on the convergence of the IoT and mobile payments to explore paying for physical goods directly from our phone bills.

  1. Transport

The contactless revolution that is sweeping payments is also making in-roads into ticketing. In Italy, we see how advances in connectivity are letting people travel with SMS tickets, and more and more cities rolling out mobile NFC ticketing too. With air travel, we’re also embracing our mobiles, with 750 million of us choosing to use an app for our boarding passes this year. When the IoT fully kicks in, we’ll see the friction associated with travel drift away, as physical tickets become a thing of the past.

  1. Access all areas

One crucial part of our lives that has so far resisted technological innovation are the keys to our homes. While there have been sophisticated electronic locks and keycards for business, we have so far avoided putting this technology where we live. The IoT could finally change this, with new smart locks slowly coming onto the market.

They have the benefit of being about to tell who entered, and when, and can grant access to certain people. This means if you’re having a party and live on the 15th floor, your friends can let themselves in via their mobiles so you don’t have to listen out for the doorbell.

  1. N0 moR3 Pa$$w0rdz

According to a UK government initiative, the average Briton has 19 passwords which are growing in number and complexity each year. Fortunately, the IoT might have the answer, with your smartphone becoming the master key for everything. Mobile ID uses two-factor authentication which makes it very difficult for anyone to pretend to be you. So now, you will be able to securely log on to any service, straight from your smartphone, which takes the stress out of trying to remember which password was which.

The mobile has come a long way in the past ten years, and for those who think that innovation has stalled, we’d ask them to consider the Internet of Things. Services like these above are just a few of the applications that will improve our connected lives, and you can read more in our Gemalto Netsize Guide. What do you think the IoT will do for mobile? Let us know either in the comments or on Twitter @Gemalto.

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