Sixty billion connected devices and counting, the Internet of Things (IoT) is already providing consumers with conveniences and benefits only imagined a few years ago. But this staggering pace of innovation needs to be tempered with foresight, because product safety cannot be an afterthought with connected devices. Strategies to prevent foreseeable or intentional misuse resulting in product safety hazards must be built into connected systems from the first product concept to the final recycling of the worn out product.
Today, I am releasing a framework that my office and I prepared, which is a compilation of considerations for designing safer connected devices. It provides technology-neutral best practices to incorporate consumer product safety in the design and deployment of devices, software and systems.
This IoT paper is just the beginning of a conversation about injury prevention in this area. I do not expect to have foreseen every potential hazard pattern or to have produced the definitive exegesis on every product safety concern that may arise in IoT; but this is a good place to start the discussion.