Join me at the “IoT Tech Expo” at the Santa Clara Convention Center next Thursday, October 20th, at 6:30pm, where I will give the following talk. Registration is free and gives you access to other IoT talks as well.

Abstract:

According to conventional wisdom, installing an IoT system inevitably means to invite the vendor and their around-the-clock surveillance into our homes. Systems are hermetically sealed, impossible to customize, repair, or extend, and ship lots of personal data back to the vendor’s cloud for purposes that, usually, are murky at best. But does it have to be that way?  Johannes argues that “Indie IoT” systems, independent of the vendor’s cloud, extensible, repairable and forkable by the user or their favorite “handyman”, like anything else in the home, would be a much better deal for the customer. Nor are they technically impossible either; plenty of examples in the maker community prove that. Now we just need to bring them to market, so users have a better choice than submitting to the technology overlords. Let’s do it!

If you come at 5:30 instead of 6:30, you get to network with other attendees first. And there are many other interesting talks earlier in the day.