1. The unbearable weight of IP
You must have heard a lot of talk about how IPv6 will support IoT because we will need more unique IP addresses than IPv4 addresses There is not much left. To a certain extent, this may be true, but as Mesh Dynamicx founder and CTO Francisda Costa points out: "Billions of devices cannot be managed individually, they can only be housed. That cannot be achieved through traditional means such as IPv6." It is impossible to manage such a large number of communicating machines. "In daCosta's view, there will be a large number of self-organizing local networks in the future. The author believes he is right; this is also feasible.
2. IP is too big
It doesn’t make sense to run a full IP stack on tiny sensors in cheap, everyday items, so we need to develop or extend small local network protocols. The local network will be connected to the corporate or industrial network, interacting with the rest of the IPv6 space only when needed. Bluetooth brings us a minimalist network, but it can only support multipoint networks. Low-power wireless protocols (such as Google's Thread, the IPv6 specification for smart furniture devices) are early attempts to solve this problem in a more traditional way. We'll likely see some version of minimal stack wireless emerge and become the dominant standard, but even with one specification as IoT devices become less smart, the networks they build will become more complex. If we fail to protect the Internet today, things will get even more complicated in the future.
3. This is a free-for-all and someone might get hurt
Currently, IoT devices are connected to smartphones, which connect to servers to get data for their applications. But there is no interconnection between different IoT applications (smartphones, wristbands, light bulbs, medical devices, etc.). We're starting to see APImashups connect the dots that different smart objects know about, but that's just the beginning. Until local non-IP networks figure out how to aggregate data in a coordinated way, we may not see further interconnections, which in turn may require a collaborative development and deployment ecosystem.
We can think of it as the operating system wars breaking out again, but this time with more moving parts, or the browser wars. In every war, the war is won by adding features, including features that no one knew they needed. Of course, more features mean more vulnerabilities and IoT security issues.