Brian Cerchio, Losant: Realizing the full potential of the Internet of Things
IoT News sat down with Brian Cerchi, Director of Solutions at Losant, to discuss how businesses can take full advantage of IoT.
One of the first examples of the Internet of Things was in the early 1980s, when students in the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University attached a machine to a bicycle to keep track of what people were drinking and what they were drinking.

The capabilities of connected devices – including coke machines – have come a long way since the early days. We asked Cerchio what’s driving the renewed excitement around IoT and what’s enabling companies to create significant value from connected devices.

“The product is always available down to the hardware device, but the big value is what you can do with the data that comes from the device,” Cerchio said. “How do you add value to the customer beyond the physical product itself?”

“The traditional model is constant preventative maintenance, say every six months or every year you have a technician come out and check and see what’s going on and what’s going on – it’s always reactive.

“With connected products, the value is really being proactive and understanding what’s going on before you get your techs in there and before you get that data and knowledge of what’s going on with the devices.”

Cerchio went on to explain how all this real-time data can be used to improve equipment efficiency and maximize the value derived from it.

Losant’s Enterprise IoT platform is low-code and designed to help teams quickly build real-time solutions. We asked Cerchio how important he thinks low code is for startups on their IoT journeys.

Cerchio told us that low code is a big help for many companies that don’t have an existing software development department and don’t want to invest in building one.