Lately I’ve been thinking about what IoT really means. We talk a lot about devices, sensors, networks, and connectivity. But to me, those are just supporting actors. The real story is the data.
When I think about the “Internet of Things,” I break it down: the Internet is about communication. The Things are physical devices that capture what’s happening in the real world. What makes IoT powerful isn’t just that these things exist. It’s that they let us capture tiny pieces of truth from the real world and move them into the digital one. Each data point is a small piece of reality.
Consider what this looks like in practice. Our customer Slabsure captures tiny movements in building foundations. These measurements predict expensive failures before they happen. Another customer, Leosmak monitors 30-40 hour freeze-drying cycles across Europe. They turn those time measurements into useful notifications. Each sensor reading is like a breadcrumb showing the path from the physical world to where it matters. The value comes from moving that truth to where people can understand it and act on it.
At Golioth, that’s how I think about our role. For a long time, IoT platforms were mainly device management platforms. That made sense before AI changed everything. Back then, the big challenge was keeping devices healthy and secure. How do I update devices remotely? How do I avoid sending technicians to every location? How do I keep my firmware safe? Those things still matter. But they’re not the end goal anymore.
I often think of IoT as a highway system for information. Each connected device is a vehicle carrying truth from the physical world to the digital world and back. What matters most isn’t how many vehicles are on the road. It’s how well and how safely they can travel. Everything else—device management, connectivity, network optimization—is the supporting infrastructure. The asphalt that paves the road. The gas stations that keep things running. The guardrails that keep everyone safe. They’re all needed. But they exist for one reason: to move data smoothly from one place to another.
Ribbit Network’s air quality sensors show this perfectly. They call them “Frogs.” Each solar-powered device is a vehicle on this highway. It carries air quality data from backyards and rooftops worldwide. The infrastructure—software updates, security, data pipelines—exists just to keep those vehicles moving reliably. Ribbit didn’t want to build roads. They wanted to measure air quality at scale. That’s the difference.
From Old IoT to the Era of Data Mobility
I don’t think the industry got IoT wrong. I just think most platforms were built in a different era. Five years ago, data mainly moved from device to cloud. You didn’t need constant, fast, two-way communication. Now AI models run at both the edge and in the cloud. Data needs to move freely in all directions. Constantly, securely, and fast.
AL2Tech learned this working with Hubwater on smart water dispensers across Europe. They first considered AWS. But they realized they needed more than cloud storage. They needed data mobility. Water use data flows from card readers to CO2 bottle sensors, through the platform, and out to different people. Gym members track their usage. Facility managers monitor refills. Sustainability teams measure plastic waste reduction. The data doesn’t just move up to the cloud anymore. It flows through a whole ecosystem.
That kind of flow doesn’t happen by accident. It required big changes to how we built our platform. In May 2024, we launched Pipelines. This completely changed how data moves through our infrastructure. Unlike the old pattern of device-to-cloud-to-storage, Pipelines let data flow freely in any direction. Shortly after, we added a feature letting devices send large files—like AI models or high-quality images—through the same connection they use for everything else. Suddenly, small devices running on battery power could work with advanced AI. Flox’s wildlife cameras capture images in remote forests. They process them right on the device. They play sounds to keep animals safe. Then they send training data back to improve their AI models. All this works because the data highway now runs both ways.
This means IoT isn’t just a stack of technology anymore. It’s a living network. The devices at the physical edge, the AI models at the digital edge, and everything in between are connected by data highways. These highways are constantly being built, torn down, and rebuilt as new connections form. That’s where I see Golioth’s place: we’re not the destination. We’re the infrastructure that makes those connections possible.
IoT as a Symphony, Not a Stack
The most exciting thing about IoT is the whole ecosystem. It’s not about one company doing everything. It’s about how many different pieces work together. In Flox’s example, they run inference on devices, then send training data from the device, to cloud, and back again—all while running on battery power in areas with weak internet.
The symphony idea became real for us in 2024 when we added Bluetooth support. Bluetooth devices now “roam” between gateways smoothly. Same tools, same dashboards, same software updates whether you’re on cellular, WiFi, Thread, or Bluetooth. One customer put sensors across a campus. Devices switch between gateways as people move through buildings. The devices don’t care which gateway they’re using. The music metaphorically keeps playing.
Each layer of IoT is one piece of a larger puzzle. But when you zoom out, you see the full picture. IoT is a symphony of hardware, cloud, and intelligence all working together. Golioth’s role in that symphony is to keep the music playing. To make sure data moves where it needs to go, when it needs to get there.
The Production Reality
What stands out across these examples isn’t just the variety. It’s how quickly teams go from prototype to production when the infrastructure becomes invisible. Take Leosmak. They became Europe’s #1 freeze dryer maker with just one firmware engineer managing their entire IoT setup. They saved millions in development costs. Not by building less, but by building only what made their product different. The remote monitoring, software updates, and analytics that customers wanted? That innovation was a result of invisible infrastructure.
We’ve done a lot of work to make this invisible infrastructure a reality. We unified our code base. No more maintaining separate versions for different platforms. We switched to usage-based pricing. Device management became basically free for small devices. We added location services using network-based positioning, instead of forcing devices to wait for GPS, to extend battery life and reduce hardware costs. Each of these changes had the same goal: make the infrastructure disappear faster.
Fast forward to this year and we’ve released a browser-based Certificate Generator. Generating and signing certificates used to be cumbersome enough that teams would stick with less-secure PSK authentication rather than deal with it. Now you can create certificates in your browser in minutes. Security is built-in from day one. When the secure path is also the easy path, security stops being a choice and becomes infrastructure. We’re excited about this evolution and there’s so much more to come.
Everyone Can Access Data
For a long time, owning data was seen as the competitive advantage. But that’s changing. We’re entering an era where everyone can create their own unique data sources. Not just consume or resell someone else’s data.
This shift is exciting. It means the value is moving away from owning data. It’s moving toward understanding it—toward what you do with it. Instead of a few companies competing over the same data, we’ll see a world of richer, more diverse data sources. The quality of insight becomes what matters. Whether it’s Slabsure predicting foundation failures from pressure sensors, or Ribbit Network’s citizen scientists building a distributed air monitoring network, the competitive advantage isn’t owning special data sources. It’s what you do with the truth you’ve captured.
But here’s the thing: what makes this possible isn’t just access to sensors. It’s access to the infrastructure that makes sensor data useful.
When Ovyl needed to test a Thread mesh network, they got devices connected and streaming data in days instead of weeks. They didn’t have to build authentication, storage, and data display from scratch. When AL2Tech added CO2 sensors to Hubwater’s dispensers for a new sparkling water service, they pushed the feature through a software update. No hardware recalls. No sending technicians to every location. The infrastructure that once took months to build now takes a few lines of code.
That’s a better, healthier way to innovate.
And that’s the “So What” of IoT. What it really means: it’s not about the devices or even the networks. It’s about creating a world where data can flow freely between the physical and digital worlds. This leads to better decisions, better products, and ultimately, a better understanding of the world around us.
