Internet-of-things - everything disconnected?

Almost everyone has predicted the wave of Internet-of-things,  current prediction is 26 billion connected devices in 2020 (1). These devices are mainly sensors and actuators that are all communicating, sharing data and making everyone's life much better(?) - and now even Google have entered the market of sensors and actuators (ref the acquisition of Nest Labs (3))- really exciting if you ask me :-) And Google is on the right track!
For the consumer market, Internet-of-things has, so far, been mainly about how to implement smoke- and fire detectors, light- and heat control, window shades etc, all interconnected and ensuring that you can control and reduce the energy consumption in your house, provide better warning of any possible hazardous fires, even leakage of gas etc. It has also been about how to make your washing machine and refrigerator more "intelligent" by knowing what is needed to be picked up by your local grocer on your way home, even having an app that gives you a recipe for today's cooking based on what you have in your fridge!? All to best for the "common man" and to ensure that we become more cost efficient and secure, but has this really happened? Is everything really connected? No, surely not to a large extent and why?

One reason is of course cost of the devices, deployment/configuration and connectivity to the Internet. Surely the prevention of a fire or break-in in your house can justify these investments? Yes, but that is of course not necessarily what triggers the consumer, what triggers the consumers is if the infrastructure is installed and connected by a service provider, the local energy utility etc and that the consumer can be offered a subscription of the various services. This becomes even more evident when you look into sensors and actuators within healthcare. 
  
Globally, 87% of the over $2 trillion spent annually on healthcare goes to the cost of the care itself, such as the work doctors do, emergency room visits, medication, and procedures. The service provider can apply predictive analytics to the data acquired from the the sensors in each home and not only monitor elderly people's health condition in their homes, but actually pro-actively save life and ensure that they stay in their homes much longer to the benefit for the elderly themselves, for their family and for the society at large that will save millions of dollars in healthcare - talking about compelling business case!!
A wearable bracelet attached to the elderly patient is all what it takes, of course you can do more, there are hundreds of sensors in market (check out http://devices.wolfram.com/), but such a bracelet is a small investment with a major impact on the healthcare of elderly:

• Location awareness, the person can be tracked outside his/her home when the person actually should be inside his/her home (night) and the person can be tracked being on the very same spot for a long time (laying helpless on the floor etc).
• Measuring blood sugar as well as pulse and pressure – pro-active prevention of  heart attack by heart rate pattern recognition (predictive analytics).
• Measure too high temperature from the patient as well as the environment (fire), also measuring humidity due to some accident (water leakages etc) in the home and/or in the bed (urine).

Is this a business opportunity - is it a global trend? Yes, you bet:

IN 2016 The U.S. market for

wearable smart fitness devices

will exceed $1 billion (2)

So lets ensure that these simple sensors are being implemented to the benefit of the elderly and society at large - lets make the Internet-of-things become really connected!

Reference/source:
1) http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245507/Why_the_Internet_of_Things_may_never_happen
2) Parks Associates 
3) Google & Nest labs