IoT Developer Survey 2017

IOT DEVELOPER SURVEY RESULTS
April 2017

SURVEY INTRODUCTION
• The Eclipse IoT Working Group, IEEE IoT, AGILE IoT and IoT Council co-
sponsored an online survey to better understand how developers are
building IoT solutions.
• The survey was open from February 7 until March 17, 2017.
A total of 713 individuals participated in the survey. Each partner
promoted the survey to their communities through social media and web
sites.
• A similar survey was conducted in 2015 and 2016.
Details are available at:
• http://www.slideshare.net/IanSkerrett/iot-developer-survey-2015
• https://www.slideshare.net/IanSkerrett/iot-developer-survey-2016
IoT Developer Survey 2017 - Copyright Eclipse Foundation, Inc.

KEY FINDINGS

KEY FINDINGS - TOP 5 IOT INDUSTRIES
and trends from previous years
IOT
PLATFORM
=
HOME
AUTOMATION
=
INDUSTRIAL
AUTOMATION
⬈
ENERGY
MANAGEMENT
⬈
CONNECTED
CITIES
⬈

KEY IOT CONCERNS
SECURITY
CONNECTIVITY
INTEROPERABILITY

KEY IOT SECURITY TECHNOLOGY
COMMUNICATION SECURITY
(TLS, DTLS, …)
DATA ENCRYPTION

TOP IOT PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
C
C/C++
CONSTRAINED
DEVICES GATEWAYS
IOT
CLOUD
C++

TOP IOT OPERATING SYSTEMS & DISTROS

CLOUD PLATFORMS OF CHOICE FOR IOT

GROWTH OF NEW CONNECTIVITY TECHNOLOGIES
LPWA Technologies

IOT EXPERIENCE

IOT EXPERIENCE
35%
20%
12%
20%
8%
5%
I develop IoT solutions for my company
I am researching IoT solutions for my company
I develop IoT solutions in my spare time only
I am learning about IoT technology in my spare
time
No experience
Other
What is your primary experience with building IoT solutions?

COMPANY PLANS FOR IOT
42%
15%
17%
14%
12% My company develops and deploys IoT
solutions today
My company plans to develop and deploy IoT
solutions in the next 6 months
My company plans to develop and deploy IoT
solutions in the next 7-18 months
My company has no plans to develop IoT
solutions
Don't know
What is your company's plan for IoT solutions?

KEY INDUSTRIES
4.5%
7.0%
7.9%
7.9%
9.4%
10.9%
11.3%
12.9%
14.2%
16.1%
16.4%
17.2%
20.1%
21.4%
22.7%
25.5%
26.1%
33.3%
33.4%
36.4%
41.1%
41.6%
Collaborative and sharing…
Vending
Banking / financial / fintech
Fitness
Security / defense
Retail
Public utilities
Security / public safety
Wearables
Utilities
Environment
Education
Transportation
Automotive
Healthcare
Agriculture
Building automation
Energy management
Connected / smart cities
Industrial automation
Home automation
IoT platform / middleware
What industry or industries best describe(s) the type of IoT solutions you have built or will build?

KEY INDUSTRIES / TRENDS 2016-2017
20.1%
21.4%
22.7%
25.5%
26.1%
33.3%
33.4%
36.4%
41.1%
41.6%
Transportation
Automotive
Healthcare
Agriculture
Building automation
Energy management
Connected / smart cities
Industrial automation
Home automation
IoT platform / middleware
2016
2017
Participation of
other industries is
growing…

TOP IOT CONCERNS
2.4%
3.8%
4.4%
8.2%
9.0%
12.3%
12.3%
13.7%
14.1%
14.7%
14.8%
15.0%
19.3%
21.4%
24.4%
46.7%
I don't know
Other
Certification / conformance
Maintenance
Complexity
Data analytics
Performance
Privacy
Scalability
Cost
Return on investment (ROI)
Standards
Integration with hardware
Connectivity
Interoperability
Security
What are your top 2 concerns for developing IoT solutions?

TOP IOT CONCERNS / TRENDS 2015-2017
19.3%
21.4%
24.4%
46.7%
20.90%
22.30%
29.40%
47.40%
22.90%
18.10%
30.70%
43.70%
Integration with
hardware
Connectivity
Interoperability
Security
2015
2016
2017
Security continues to be the
key concern.
Interoperability might be
decreasing.

TECHNOLOGY USED FOR IOT

OVERALL SUMMARY OF LANGUAGE USAGE
60.9%
60.5%
48.0% 46.6%
43.1%
35.8%
20.3%
18.2% 16.6%
10.1% 10.0% 9.4%
6.6% 6.1% 4.5% 3.9%
Which of the following programming languages, if any, do you use to build IoT
solutions?

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES – CONSTRAINED DEVICES
56.4%
38.3%
21.2% 20.8%
18.9%
10.3%
8.5% 7.1% 5.7%
C C++ Java Python Assembler JavaScript Node.js Lua C#
Which of the following programming languages, if any, do you use to build IoT
solutions? (Constrained Devices)

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES – IOT GATEWAYS
40.8%
30.4% 29.9%
28.1%
17.3% 16.7%
8.7%
5.3% 4.5% 4.3% 4.3%
Which of the following programming languages, if any, do you use to build
IoT solutions? (Gateways)

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES – IOT CLOUD
46.3%
33.6%
26.3% 26.2%
16.4%
11.6% 10.5%
8.4% 7.3% 6.9%
Java JavaScript Node.js Python PHP C++ C# R C Go
Which of the following programming languages, if any, do you use to build
IoT solutions? (Cloud Platform)

IOT OPERATING SYSTEMS
81.5%
29.5% 27.7%
17.7%
14.9%
10.1% 10.1% 9.6% 9.2% 9.0%
3.3%
Linux No OS /
Bare-metal
Windows FreeRTOS Contiki MBed Other RIOT TinyOS Other Zephyr
Which operating system(s) do you use for your IoT devices? (Summary)

ALTERNATIVES TO USING LINUX FOR IOT
29.5%
27.7%
17.7%
14.9%
10.1% 10.1% 9.6% 9.2%
3.3%
No OS /
Bare-metal
Windows FreeRTOS Contiki MBed Other RIOT TinyOS Zephyr
2015
2016
2017
Windows, FreeRTOS and
Contiki experience steady
growth

IOT OPERATING SYSTEMS – CONSTRAINED DEVICES
44.1%
27.6%
14.6% 15.0%
13.4%
8.9% 7.8% 8.4% 8.0%
2.9%
Linux No OS /
Bare-metal
Windows FreeRTOS Contiki MBed Other RIOT TinyOS Zephyr
Which operating system(s) do you use for your IoT devices? (Devices)

IOT OPERATING SYSTEMS – IOT GATEWAY
66.9%
20.5%
5.5% 5.0% 4.1% 4.1% 3.6% 3.0% 2.5% 1.2%
Linux Windows Other FreeRTOS No OS /
Bare-metal
Contiki RIOT TinyOS MBed Zephyr
Which operating system(s) do you use for your IoT devices? (Gateway)

IOT OPERATING SYSTEMS / LINUX DISTROS FOR IOT
45.5% 44.0%
21.8%
14.1%
12.4%
10.3% 9.2% 9.0%
3.8%
1.7% 1.5% 1.1%
If you are using Linux, what distribution do you typically use for your IoT
solution?

IOT HARDWARE ARCHITECTURES
36.9%
33.4%
27.7%
22.8% 22.4% 22.3%
6.6%
4.6%
ARM Cortex-
M3 / ARM
Cortex-M4
ARM Cortex-
M0 / ARM
Cortex-M0+ /
ARM Cortex-
M1
16-bit MCU Don't know ARM Cortex-
M7
8-bit MCU Other Don't use
constrained
devices
What hardware architectures are you using for your IoT constrained device(s)?

IOT HARDWARE ARCHITECTURES
32.5%
27.8%
21.8% 20.7% 19.6%
17.4%
11.1%
9.3%
7.4%
6.2%
3.6%
Intel
x86_64
ARM v7-A
(Cortex-A
32 bits)
Intel x86 ARM v8
(Cortex-A
64 bits)
Don't
know
ARM v7-M
(Cortex-M)
ARM v6 ARM v7-R
(Cortex-R)
Don't use
gateways
MIPS Other
What hardware architectures are you using for your IoT gateway(s)?

IOT SECURITY TECHNOLOGIES
2.5%
9.3%
10.0%
10.6%
11.4%
16.4%
18.5%
24.3%
27.2%
34.4%
43.2%
48.3%
Other
Don't know
Use of Trusted Platform Modules (TPM)
Use of Hardware Security Module…
Secure boot
No security technology is used
Over the air update
OAuth & OpenID
Public key infrastructure
JSON web token or similar token…
Data encryption
Communication security
Which of the following security-related technologies do you use in your IoT
solution?

HARDWARE COMPONENTS IN IOT SOLUTIONS
86.8%
50.8% 50.2%
36.2% 35.1% 33.5%
25.4%
17.4%
4.5% 4.1%
Sensors Actuators Gateway /
hub device
Edge node
device
Camera /
video
capture
LCD display Touch
screen
Audio
playback /
speaker
None Other
What hardware components are included in your IoT solution?

SOFTWARE FEATURES IN IOT SOLUTIONS
52.6%
47.0%
43.9% 43.5%
37.4%
29.5%
19.9%
13.4% 13.2%
5.5%
3.1%
Data
analytics
Mobile
application
Integration
with existing
back-end
systems
Cloud
hosted
application
User
application
running on a
device
Machine
learning
Computer
vision
Trusted
execution
environment
Voice
recognition
None Other
What software features are included in your IoT solution?

CLOUD SERVICES FOR IOT
5.7%
7.3%
7.9%
9.1%
11.9%
12.3%
13.2%
15.6%
18.4%
20.4%
26.7%
42.7%
GE Predix
Cloud Foundry (On-…
Red Hat OpenShift
Other
Don’t know
OpenStack (On-premise)
None
IBM Bluemix
Private/ On-premise cloud
Google Cloud Platform
Microsoft Azure
Amazon AWS
Do you use, or plan to use, any of the following cloud service offerings for
implementing your IoT solution?

TRENDS OF CLOUD SERVICES FOR IOT 2016-2017
36.8%
20.8%
16.9%
34.9%
16.9%
42.7%
26.7%
20.4%
18.4%
15.6%
Amazon AWS Microsoft Azure Google Cloud
Platform
Private/
On-premise cloud
IBM Bluemix
2016 2017
AWS, MS and Google
continue to dominate;
Significant decline in private
cloud

CONNECTIVITY PROTOCOLS
3.6%
3.8%
6.4%
7.8%
8.2%
21.4%
22.4%
24.6%
27.6%
31.8%
48.2%
54.0%
66.4%
67.0%
Satellite
Don’t know
Thread
Other
UPnP
6LoWPAN
LPWA (LoRa, Sigfox, LTE-M, etc.)
Serial RS-232/RS-485
Zigbee
Cellular
Bluetooth / Bluetooth Smart
Ethernet
Wi-Fi
TCP/IP
What connectivity protocol(s) do you use for your IoT solution?

GROWTH OF NEW CONNECTIVITY PROTOCOLS
21.4%
22.4%
48.2%
16.2%
17.3%
40.9%
70.9%
12.9%
35.8%
Thread
UPnP
6LoWPAN
LPWA (LoRa, Sigfox, LTE-M,…
Serial RS-232/RS-485
Zigbee
Cellular
Bluetooth / Bluetooth Smart
Ethernet
Wi-Fi
TCP/IP
2015
2016
2017
4.8%
6.4%
1.8%
Steady growth of Bluetooth,
LPWA, 6LoWPAN; Thread
appears to be lagging

MESSAGING STANDARDS
3.6%
4.0%
4.9%
7.1%
7.1%
10.3%
15.0%
16.8%
18.4%
26.7%
54.7%
60.1%
None
DDS
Proprietary vendor protocol (specify below)
Don’t know
Other
XMPP
AMQP
HTTP/2
In-house / proprietary
CoAP
MQTT
HTTP
What messaging protocol(s) do you use for your IoT solution?

INDUSTRIAL PROTOCOLS
1.1%
2.2%
3.1%
3.3%
3.7%
5.7%
6.4%
6.4%
6.8%
12.5%
14.7%
18.0%
20.0%
22.6%
32.1%
Sercos
FOUNDATION fieldbus
DNP3
Other
IEC 60870, 61850
EtherCat
BACNet
KNX
Profibus, Profinet
OPC-UA (IEC 62541)
Industrial Protocol (EtherNet/IP, ControlNet,…
CAN
Don’t know
Modbus
None
What industrial protocol(s) do you use in your IoT solution?

TEXT EDITORS / IDES
3.7%
3.7%
5.1%
6.7%
9.0%
10.8%
14.3%
16.5%
17.5%
20.8%
22.4%
25.7%
29.3%
47.5%
Eclipse Che
Eclipse Orion
Platform.io
Don't know
Emacs
Sublime
IntelliJ IDEA
Atom
Other
Visual Studio…
Android Studio
Vim
Arduino IDE
Eclipse Desktop…
Which text editor(s) or IDE(s) do you use when building IoT solutions?

USAGE OF OPEN HARDWARE
20%
31%
33%
9%
7%
Yes, my company deploys IoT solution using
an open hardware platform
Yes, my company prototypes IoT solutions
using an open hardware platform
Yes, I have experimented with open
harware in my spare time
No, but I intend to experiment with open
hardware in the next 6 months
Never used open hardware
Have you ever used any open hardware platforms like Raspberry Pi,
Arduino, BeagleBone, etc.?

IOT INDUSTRY PERCEPTIONS

OPEN SOURCE POLICY
Which of the following statement(s) best describes your IoT open source
project participation?
3.4%
15.8%
18.8%
21.6%
27.5%
46.1%
Other
No experience with IoT open source projects.
Report bugs and feature enhancements to
open source projects that provide IoT
technology.
Committer on an open source project that
builds technology for IoT solutions.
Experimented with IoT open source
technology, but don’t use it in IoT solutions.
Organization uses open source technology in
our IoT solutions.

IOT CONSORTIUMS
Important Neutral
Not
Important
Don't
Know
Never heard
of them
Average
Rating
IEEE 233 125 30 51 9 1.83
Eclipse IoT 201 101 50 64 27 2.13
Apache Foundation 183 118 43 68 25 2.16
W3C 178 116 41 55 31 2.16
IETF 140 112 35 80 57 2.53
LoRa Alliance 99 113 55 83 79 2.84
Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) 89 117 40 91 92 2.95
OASIS 50 117 55 100 90 3.15
Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF) 75 91 42 89 117 3.20
OneM2M 54 95 49 88 120 3.31
Thread Group 41 107 53 88 120 3.34
OMA 44 103 42 101 126 3.39
How would you rank your organization’s perceived importance of the following IoT
Consortiums to your IoT strategy? ( 1 = Important, 5 = Never heard of them)

EUROPEAN RESEARCH CONSORTIUMS
Active
participant
Highly
aware
Moderately
aware
Somewhat
aware
No Knowledge
Rating
Average
FIWARE 5 25 37 27 149 4.19
IERC - European Research
Cluster on the IoT
7 22 33 35 146 4.20
IoT-EPI - The European Platforms
Initiative for the IoT
12 20 23 30 158 4.24
AIOTI - The European Alliance of
IoT for Innovation
10 17 27 30 161 4.29
Hypercat 2 7 26 25 180 4.56
[Asked to European Respondents Only]
How would you rank your awareness for the following IoT related EU
Research initiatives? ( 1 – Active Participant, 5 – No Knowledge)

TOP IOT CORPORATE LEADERS

WHO RESPONDED?

JOB TITLE
28%
14%
1%
6%5%
2%
5%
19%
7%
6%
1%
6%
Developer
Architect
Testing
Development Manager
Product Manager
Sales / Business Development
Executive
Researcher
Student
Independent Consultant
Currently umemployed
Other
What is your job title?

17.7%
19.6%
ORGANIZATION SIZE
How large is the organization you work for (# employees)?
50-500
1-49
501-5,000
5,000+
42.7%
20%

REGION
Where do you live?
7.3%
18.5%
3.6%
51.6%
19.0%North
America
South
America
Europe
Africa +
Middle
East
Asia +
Pacific

DIFFERENT RESPONDENT
POOLS

DIFFERENT RESPONDENTS POOLS
The Survey was jointly sponsored by the Eclipse IoT Working Group, IEEE IoT and the AGILE IoT
research project. Each sponsor group promoted the survey to their community.
A total of 713 individuals participated in the survey. There were 255 respondents from the Eclipse
community and 257 from the IEEE community. Given the size of these respondent pools, it is interesting
to look at the differences between these two community.
The next page provides the details on the main differences. In general,
- It appears the experience within the IEEE community is more focused on research, while the Eclipse
community was more likely to be working in deploying IoT solutions
- The language of choice in the Eclipse community was Java/C and in the IEEE it was C/Python.
- MQTT was a lot more popular in the Eclipse community.
- It would appear usage of AWS and Private Cloud is more popular within the Eclipse community
- For connectivity protocols, LPWA, 6LoWPAN and Bluetooth are all more popular in the IEEE
community.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN IEEE AND ECLIPSE IOT
Topic All IEEE Eclipse IoT
Experience with IoT
Develop IoT Solutions (34.6%)
Research IoT Solutions (20.2%)
Language Usage
Java (60.8%)
C (60.5%)
C++ (48%)
Python (46.6%)
C(62.5%)
Python (54.8%)
C++(52.9%)
Java (51.4%)
Java (73.5%)
C (56.6%)
JavaScript (42.8%)
C++ (41.3%)
Security
Comm (48.3%)
Encryption (43.2%)
OTA (18.5%)
Encrption (44%)
Comm (40%)
OTA (14%)
Comm (51.8%)
Encrypt (40%)
OTA (22.3%)
Cloud Provider
AWS (42.7%)
MS Azure (26.7%)
GCP ((20.4%)
Private (18.4%)
AWS (39.7%)
MS Azure (25.6%)
GCP (22.1%)
Private (14.1%)
AWS (49.4%)
MS Azure (29.6%)
Private (21.6%)
GCP (20.4%)
Message Protocol
HTTP (60.1%)
MQTT (54.7%)
CoAP (26.7%)
HTTP (52.8%)
MQTT (43.6%)
CoAP (24.6%)
MQTT (66.7%)
HTTP (61.8%)
CoAP (24.8%)
Connectivity
Bluetooth (48.2%)
LPWA (22.4%)
6LoWPAN (21.4%)
Thread (6.4%)
Bluetooth (50.5%)
6LoWPAN (26.8%)
LPWA (25.8%)
Thread (5.8%)
Bluetooth (43.2%)
LPWA (19.1%)
6LoWPAN (11.7%)
Thread (4.3%)

CONTACT INFORMATION
iot.eclipse.org
@EclipseIoT
iot.ieee.org
@IEEEIoT
agile-iot.eu
@agile_iot
theinternetofthings.eu/
@robvank

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