Because of its very nature, the first ten years of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been run on batteries. But I believe there’s inherent limitation being tethered to ‘old’ power sources, like ‘dumb’ fossil fuels we mine from the earth to move our families a few miles down the road. Tomorrow’s power, not to mention family trips, are likely to run differently.

The reality is, the Internet of Things needs alternative sources of power to sustain its manifold, and as yet, undiscovered future benefits.

The Diversity of Things also tells me, we can’t run things efficiently using wires. More wires mean more things to trip over. Quite simply, and as with all technological advances, we need ‘new power’ thinking to move forward.

If I could paint a picture of a future Internet of Things device, it would be high-energy, but very non-exploitative. It would help if we started to think more collectively outside the box. Untethered thinking.

As I’ve previously mentioned, we’re at the very beginning of IoT, and yet, with trillions of new IoT devices predicted to arrive in the near future, the power source envelope must be pushed to slow our dependence on ‘stupider’ fuel varieties.

There are several examples leading the drive toward IoT power alternatives like types of parasitic, solar power and thermal difference sensors. There’s plenty of conscious awareness to formulate new power for IoT. This is because they’re good for the market, mankind and the world.

Final thoughts this week.

Trillions more devices will create vast amounts of new data, which presents many challenges we’ll talk about soon. Importantly, the ability to not only gather, but to understand this data has potential to add more efficiency to our daily lives, which could ultimately spell more time for the important things we care about, including the world we live in.

And yet, in order for this big-data to improve quality of life on so many levels, IoT demands we figure out better power to support that improvement. We owe it to ourselves to reinvent IoT’s current momentum in the same way the Ford Model-T has evolved into one of fastest electric car ever built.

IoT is destined to move forward on ‘new power thinking.’