All respondents will be entered into the prize draw for a chance to win:
• An iPad Pro (one winner)
• A choice between a £250 Amazon voucher (or local currency equivalent) OR a drone of similar value (three winners)
• A £50 Farnell voucher (or local currency equivalent) to spend on the Farnell website for winners in Europe and Asia Pacific or a £50 Amazon voucher for the winner in North America (six winners in total)

The survey results will highlight the growth of current and emerging IoT applications and reveal the technologies being deployed in IoT solutions. By gaining a deeper understanding of market segments, design requirements, and emerging trends, Farnell will stay ahead of customer needs and ensure it can support product designs both now and in the future.

Lee Morgan, Senior Technical Marketing Manager EMEA at Tektronix, expects security, energy consumption, preventative maintenance, and smart cities to be prominent in this year's results: “I believe one of the most exciting sectors of IoT is smart cities, with the arrival of 5G (and future wireless technologies) enabling high-speed and reliable data exchange between devices. This will usher in a new era in areas such as real-time traffic management, information on how busy restaurants, exhibitions, or attractions are at certain times, allowing for dynamic queue management, and changes in the brightness of streetlights when pedestrian traffic is detected.” Morgan adds: “Energy consumption is a hot topic right now. We already have mature products on the market that enable energy management in homes (like Hive and Nest), which not only allow us to control heating, lighting, and appliances with the touch of a button or a voice command, but also help us be aware of energy waste. Imagine all the savings that could be achieved on an industrial or even national scale, for example, with streetlights that only turn on when a car is within a certain distance.”.

Jacky Perdrigeat, VP EMEA Marketing & Application, Microcontrollers and Digital ICs, and Gerard Cronin, Head of Marketing Communications at ST Microelectronics, commented:
“We expect the survey to confirm the crucial importance of security, reliability, and ecosystems in IoT designs. The relative importance of each of these three factors depends on the end application, which is why ST offers a full range of products and technologies that give designers the flexibility to emphasize the functionalities that best suit the needs of their markets. We also expect that, due to the great value (in terms of security, efficiency, and convenience) that smart applications offer to industries and cities, smart city and smart industry applications will become the largest (and most valuable) markets in the long term. Because IoT helps designers embed intelligence wherever it can improve people's lives, end markets benefit from an incredible value proposition that will ultimately ensure their success.”

This is the second consecutive year that Farnell has conducted the survey, and this year's inclusion of questions related to artificial intelligence demonstrates how the IoT industry is changing and adopting new technologies. The new questions will reveal at what points in the IoT design process artificial intelligence is being incorporated and whether it is being integrated into IoT products or solutions.

The 2018 survey results showed that the primary requirement for maximizing the benefits of IoT was the need for common standards and policies. They also revealed the growing importance of hardware in the design process, with engineers using a variety of hardware platforms, such as Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black, to accelerate the design process and reduce time to market. The results also highlighted the main application areas expected to grow over the next five years, including home automation, industrial automation and control, and artificial intelligence.

Cliff Ortmeyer, Global Head of Technical Marketing at Farnell, comments: “The opportunities and applications for the Internet of Things are growing at an ever-increasing pace, and we ensure our customers have immediate access to the hardware and software they need to minimize product development times. Our ever-expanding range of modular solutions means designers no longer need in-depth knowledge of artificial intelligence to integrate it into their systems.”.

To participate in Farnell's global IoT survey and enter the prize draw, click here. Share your opinion online using #FarnellGlobalIoTIndex. The terms and conditions of the IoT survey and prize draw are available in the element14 community.