April 2015 Observations – Printing and the “Internet of Things”
revisited
Just a
year ago, for my April 2014 Observations,
I wrote about printers and their potential role in the future of the
much-talked-about “Internet of Things” (IoT). In “Printers as Things? Do printers fit as part of the Internet-of-things?” I explored a bit
of what I had picked up, knowledge-wise, regarding the IoT and reported on some
exploration I had been doing on whether or not printers qualified as “things”
and thus had a future as part of a far-flung concept.
Prior to writing
the story, in floating the question around with colleagues in the printing and
imaging industry I had found a bit of push-back. My perception at least was
that “printers as things” was a demotion of sorts in some peoples’ minds, and
that while the IoT might be great for things like thermostats and toasters (and
a multitude of other more industrial objects), printers were “better” than
that. But then I consulted with my former Lyra Research colleague Steve Hoffenberg,
who was then and now Director of IoT & Embedded Technology at VDC Research.
For those wanting to go deeper, please refer back to last April’s Observations, but in summary, Steve
concurred with me that printers were “things” but more than that, through the
successful creation and implementation of Managed Print Services, our industry
had provided a “proof point” for the developing IoT movement.
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| Last April's Observations explored the connection between the Internet of Things and Printers |
With
wind in my sails as provided by Hoffenberg’s thoughts, I went on to assert that
HP’s noted “Instant Ink” program (see above) was another current industry
example of IoT. But again, read the details from the post if interested.
Which brings us to the
past year. I have been keeping an eye (and ear) and the IoT field and the
growing buzz about it. And one of my developing interests in the hands-on area
– and frankly without immediately associating it with IoT – has been the web
service, “If This Then That”. The current version of the Wikipedia article introduces the
service as follows:
“IFTTT is a web-based service that allows users to create chains of simple conditional statements, called "recipes", which are triggered based on changes to other web services such as Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, and Craigslist. IFTTT is an abbreviation of "If This Then That" (pronounced like "gift" without the "g").”
I was directly exposed to IFTTT for
the first time via a recipe involving organizing various contributors’ photos
from a family wedding, but soon I had implemented a few now successfully
operating recipes of my own. I use it to this day to, for example, store my
“favorited” tweets as notes in Evernote, and to convert my Instagram photos
into tweets. But I needed a little push to make the connection to printing and
the Internet of Things!
As far as the IoT, I found out the
company, IFTTT, as ranked by one “scorekeeper”, is the fourth highest valued
firm in the IoT ecosystem, as of February of this year. This seemed obvious,
following a little reflection on my sorting through all the available recipes
on multiple occasions – including the email I get which recommends one each day
– I have noticed a great number of them relating to objects like the Nest smart
thermostat, which we have installed in our home, and of course a prime example
in the IoT. So while my chosen recipes so far have revolved around Web
platforms/programs such as Evernote, Instagram, and Twitter, interaction with
IoT-enabled devices in the physical world is a natural part of If This Then
That.
And as far as the physical devices
called printers? That connection came by way of a communication from my friends
at printer-industry-leader HP, alerting me to a mid-February post on the blog
of Shane Wall, currently Chief Technology Officer of HP’s Personal and Printing
Systems organization. The guest blogger was Phil McCoog, Chief Technologist and
HP Fellow, and also a frequent source for me when I am writing about mobile
printing and other future-oriented printing and imaging developments. In his
post, entitled, "HP Launches the HP Print Channel on IFTTT Creating Over40M IoT Printers”,
McCoog not only declares 40 million HP printers as IoT “things”, he also
explains how the HP/IFTTT Connection has been implemented (by the creation of
an “HP Print” channel), and also expands into the strategy around
“Hyper-Integration”.
Next
month, I will start with a little more on HP’s view on “Hyper-Integration” and
some of my thoughts, define a few of those key IFTTT terms like recipes and
channels, and offer an interpretation of the mystery graphic at the top. I will
also pass along some of my recent hands-on experiences. Of late, I have been
implementing some of the recipes using the HP Channel and IFTTT, and have
discovered a few other printing and imaging-related recipes which I look
forward to sharing. So stay tuned!
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