How IoT-Based Mobile Apps Impact User Experience

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly growing, and it’s already made its way to our smartphones in the form of mobile apps and connected devices.

IoT’s global market (which includes software, connectivity, devices, and services) reached $130 billion in 2018. By 2025, experts forecast that it is predicted to grow to more than 64 billion connected and active IoT devices.

With the major global growth in smartphones, IoT is positioning itself to move into mobile app territory. At our Los Angeles-based mobile technology studio, user experience is always a top priority during an app’s development cycle. Let’s take a look at IoT’s inevitable impact on mobile user experience.

The Growth of IoT Mobile Apps

For mobile phones specifically, many consumers might think that their device is not connected to any IoT system. But smartphones are a preferred channel for communication and notifications for most consumers, making them a valuable device to reach for IoT.

For IoT, mobile apps transfer data flexibly, and IoT mobile app development is easy to tack onto an existing IoT system. Mobile apps can be used to efficiently manage IoT devices and read information from them.

Because IoT brings deeper connectivity to our world, we can use devices to understand, observe, and analyze without human help or intervention. And this kind of flexibility and freedom will grow exponentially as more mobile apps become connected to IoT systems.

But what else does IoT offer consumers and businesses through the utilization of mobile apps?

IoT Is Cost-Effective

For most businesses, mentioning a technology is cost-effective gets everyone’s attention really quickly. With IoT, businesses can offer the same services (or better) with less cost than their old methods. The efficiency factor alone should turn heads, but money talks louder.

Using mobile apps remotely with IoT devices can help organizations monitor and maintain equipment, requiring less human attention. Passing these savings onto customers in the form of better features and technology can help maintain an impactful user experience.

IoT Gives Us a Deeper Understanding of Consumer Behavior

Consumers are notoriously difficult to understand, but it’s a necessity for every business to thrive. With IoT, businesses can generate relevant information, data, and statistics about their customers using sources like mobile internet usage, social media, video surveillance, GPS tracking, and more.

With a better understanding of customers and their habits, we can optimize mobile app experiences to please even the most critical group of customers.

IoT Increases Productivity

On the business side, productivity equals profit. With IoT, productivity in organizations shoots through the roof, giving employees time to spend on other priorities. Because IoT offers real-time measurement of data points, it’s easy to check-in on the business’s output at any given time of the day.

Another major benefit of real-time monitoring is that it allows companies to optimize their employee work schedules, meeting times and locations, and to-do lists.

On the consumer side, displaying real-time data about their health, shipments, or grandmother’s daily activities gives the user a consistent experience. This stability is invaluable for the user, and it brings about positive feelings regarding the company.

IoT Improves Customer Experiences

Most businesses who do not cater to their customers’ experience will lose their customer base quickly. Putting IoT systems in place creates more seamless payment methods, faster shipping notifications, and easier returns processes. Helping the user keep track of their transactions, return history, and more makes the customer experience seamless.

IoT Cultivates Safer Workplaces

Watching over high-risk environments is difficult without remote monitoring tools. But with IoT, these tools afford more efficiency and safety for employees. If a threat seems imminent or if there is an unusually high amount of activity, alerts can be sent out immediately.

Creating a safer workplace for employees puts customers at ease also. Knowing that they’re purchasing from a company that cares about their employees and their safety, customers can be more likely to return.

IoT Creates a More Efficient Data Environment

IoT devices are connected to entire IoT systems, and these systems generate an inordinate amount of data. For this amount of data, which often contains sensitive or private information, encryption and safe storage is of the utmost importance.

With edge computing, many IoT devices no longer need to access data storage to generate, analyze, and report metrics in real-time. This speed brings users better predictions, more accuracy, and an overall more trustworthy experience.

IoT Generates Better Research

In today’s technological landscape of AI, IoT, and data science, more data is always better. Automating data collection through user surveys and feedback, usage of apps, and website browsing behavior gives us a lot of insight into how our customers think.

On one hand, data from across companies can be pooled for statistical analysis. On the other hand, we can use all of our organization’s own data to optimize the user experience to provide better search tools, finer granularity on prediction, and more personalized communications.

IoT Today and Tomorrow

Businesses must adapt and implement IoT to stay ahead of the curve because this technology will only continue to grow. It is quickly becoming one of the main drivers for mobile app development.

In order to ensure a smooth transition for all end-users, every player in this industry must ask themselves how IoT can improve their customer and user experience. Without increased insight into your customers and their experience with your product or service, you’re missing out on valuable business data.

Is your business using IoT? How has it impacted your customer experience? Let us know in the comments below!