The Realities of Connectivity in Connected Products

Connectivity feels invisible until it isn’t. The moment it drops, you realize how much your product depends on an infrastructure you can’t fully control. Outages, coverage gaps, and a constantly changing technology landscape pose challenges that can undermine even the most carefully engineered products. 

Many organizations and use cases require a global connectivity solution. However, the challenge of delivering reliable global connectivity undermines attempts to keep your solution simple. While there are no easy answers, I believe that it is possible to achieve robust global connectivity while giving users simple experiences, ultimately ensuring that your connected product will deliver the desired business results. 

Global Reach Is Still a Challenge 

It would be nice to imagine one giant, reliable network that covers the entire world. And while solutions like global roaming agreements, eSIMs, and the myriad of wireless standards promise a solution, the reality on the ground is rarely that simple. Cities and dense areas are usually well served, but the gaps show up quickly once you move into farmland, shipping routes, remote mines, or rural communities. And even where a signal exists, the differences between countries, regulations, and cellular carriers require rigorous engineering to ensure reliable connectivity. 

For a connected product, a lost connection isn’t just an inconvenience. Your users have a job to do and rarely have the time and experience to deal with unreliable connectivity. Connected products need to just work. Nothing will torpedo the adoption of your connected product faster than frustrating your customers who depend on it. 

Satellites on the Horizon 

One of the most exciting advancements right now is the rise of non-terrestrial networks, often powered by low Earth orbit satellites. These systems extend coverage into places where traditional networks struggle. For products tied to global logistics or remote monitoring, this can be a game changer. 

Of course, cutting-edge solutions often come with challenges. Satellite connectivity can bring higher costs, both financially and technically. The important thing is to stay aware of how this technology evolves and think carefully about whether it applies to your product. For many use cases, traditional cellular networks are more than enough. For others, satellites can unlock possibilities that were once out of reach. 

Complexity is Killing IoT 

When we talk about complexity, it’s not just a burden on the design of the product. The real cost appears later in deployment, operations, and maintenance. While a connectivity approach might look straightforward on paper, the day-to-day implications for your customers and operations teams are often hidden. 

Consider what happens when something goes wrong. For many products, resolving connectivity issues requires a coordinated effort across end users, IT departments, support teams, engineering, and MVNOs/carriers. This level of complexity (and cost) alone can quickly undermine the business case and quickly erode customer trust. Leaning into the simplicity of a solution helps streamline resolution, resulting in better customer adoption and lower operational costs. In my experience, companies that struggle with connected products are usually the ones that built a system too complex and underestimated the effort to operate and maintain it in the real world. 

Simplicity Enables Scaling 

Success with connected products often comes down to one principle: keep it simple for your users. It’s very natural when implementing connectivity for complexity to emerge. The simple act of establishing a secure connection is inherently complex, especially for constrained embedded devices. It takes intentionality and a commitment to simplicity to ensure that products don’t become their own barrier to adoption. 

Simplicity enables scale. We have likely all had the experience of connecting a personal device to Wi-Fi. While that process has gotten easier over the years, there are still many steps, and it’s easy to make mistakes. Consider the prospect of connecting 10,000 devices over Wi-Fi. As we scale connected solutions, it becomes extremely important to select technologies that can deliver a simple experience, provide streamlined tools, and establish an overall process that keeps it straightforward for any user involved.  

Here are a few practical reminders to keep close: 

• Choose the solution that matches your actual use case. Consider key tradeoffs that drive complexity including provisioning effort, global regulatory complexity, and security. 

• Keep it simple to scale effectively. Design your user experiences to minimize manual steps, provide support teams the visibility and tools to quickly address issues, and consider how to minimize the effort required by your end users and customer IT departments to support deployment. 

• Make connectivity a foundational design choice. Treat it as core to your product strategy rather than something to tack on later. This helps keep simplicity and reliability as a guide for your decisions. 

A Reliable Path Forward 

Connectivity options are getting stronger, but they are far from perfect. The businesses that thrive aren’t waiting for flawless coverage. They’re the ones designing with the real world in mind, staying aware of new technologies, and resisting the urge to overcomplicate. 

When it comes to connected products, simplicity is more than smart design. It’s the most reliable path to scaling with confidence.