It’s day three of the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, and as always it’s living up to the hype. From cool innovations in drones and car concepts to wearables and e-shopping, everything you would expect to be here is here. But, I find the unexpected to be even more intriguing and what I’ve seen is the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving new innovations for industrial and consumer applications. Who would have thought that IoT for energy and water would have a place at CES? Well it does and I’ll tell you three reasons why:

1. The energy and water industries have been connecting millions of networked devices for decades. You could say the utility industry is a leader in IoT and this industry knows how to connect devices and collect field and sensor data reliably and securely with standards-based networks.
2. Energy and water utilities deploy sensors that help detect power outages and gas and water leaks.
3. Utility networks and sensors can be leveraged for other applications, such as solar monitoring, streetlight management, electric vehicle charging and beyond.

So how does this fit within the massive halls of CES, it all fundamentally creates more efficiencies and conservation opportunities for consumers like you and me.

Itron is at CES this week demonstrating different IoT applications, based on Itron Riva™, our energy and water networking technology and distributed intelligence platform, with great feedback so far.