My life with the Internet Of Things, Gold Apple Watches & Is Privacy simply Good Business Sense?

There has been a blizzard of publicity and hype around wearables and the Internet Of Things (IoT), which only seems to be increasing as companies use it to garner epic valuations. Fitbit is currently preparing for a $100 million IPO, resulting in a lawsuit from chief rival Jawbone, for allegedly poaching staff and proprietary data.

All this got me thinking back about my own journey with wearables, and where new and established tech brands could be heading.

My story with the IOT began 2 years ago, when I spotted an activity tracker on the wrist of a well-known tech journalist as he held forth in his ‘salon’. I promptly bought a Jawbone band, which back then monitored sleep and paces walked (to that you can now add heart rate, food logging and a ‘Smart Coach’).

I found that I quickly grew to love my new wearable buddy, mostly as an alarm which would get me up early doors without triggering rage from my wife and (then) baby.

The Jawbone helped me ‘gamify’ my efforts to walk further and be more active, but it was easy to fool it – my piano practice was interpreted by the band as me running a half marathon every day!

I was so enthused by my first wearable that I bought a Fitbit for my wife and a Nike Fuelband for my Mother-In-Law, which they dutifully started wearing daily.

Long term, the outcome was that after 3 happy months together, my original Jawbone died, and when the same thing happened to the replacement exactly 3 months later, I couldn’t be bothered to get another, despite the best efforts of Jawbone’s (excellent) Customer Service team. Anyway, by then I had ‘internalised’ the good habits it helped me form initially, whilst my wife and M-In-Law abandoned their devices after a few weeks.

While it was still working, attempts by the Jawbone to show me advertising messages in the stream of motivational pushes (‘feel the burn’ etc) were unbelievably clunky, to the point where it wasn’t even annoying, just a bit pathetic, and US-based so I couldn’t even act on the opportunity to prevent hair loss J

Of course, while the gadgets themselves may now be mouldering away in a drawer, the personal data they harvested lives on, and the connections between me and my family used to provide context as a means of monetisation.

This leads me to believe that the debate on Data Privacy needs to be continued, and an ethical framework for personal data collection, analysis and use must be put in place, before the IOT can really take off in the world outside California, without blowing up the engine of change.

And the smart money is responding to this challenge. Last week, Apple’s Tim Cook came out strongly on the side of privacy in a speech, against the prevalent Silicon Valley ad-funded business model.

Apple’s wearable tech range, he pledged, will not harvest personal data, nor will it be ad-funded. With this position, Apple is occupying the moral high ground, throwing an unflattering light on competitors such as Facebook and Google.

It’s also sensible business practice; with statements coupled to the launch of the Apple Watch (with gold models, so coveted that an oligarch’s son in China bought 2 for his dog), Cook is positioning them as a luxury brand.

Apple wants to be seen to make real money, and have the items they sell imbued with value much as an IWC or Rolex watch, not digital dollars from a privacy-unfriendly business model, which is coming under increasing scrutiny from Europe, regulators and public opinion. I think Cook has called it right on this issue…