Predicting the future is more than fine art than science, yet information technology's e'er an interesting exercise to appoint in every bit a new year comes upon usa. So with the close of what was a difficult, though interesting year in the technology business concern, here's a look at my predictions for the meridian 10 tech developments of 2022.

Prediction i: Device Categories Beginning to Disappear

Ane of the primal metrics for the relative health of the tech industry has e'er been the measurement of unit of measurement shipments and/or revenues for various categories of hardware-based tech devices. From PCs, tablets and smartphones, through smartwatches, smart TVs and head-mounted displays, there'due south been a decades-long obsession with counting the numbers and drawing conclusions from how the results end up. The trouble is, the lines between these categories have been getting murkier and more than difficult to distinguish for years, making what once seemed like well-defined groupings become increasingly capricious.

In 2022, I expect the lines between production categories to get even blurrier. If, for instance, vendors build mitt-held devices running desktop operating systems that can too snap into or serve as the primary interface for a connected car and/or a smart home arrangement, what would you telephone call that and how would y'all count it? With increasing options for high-speed wireless connectivity to accessories and other calculating devices, combined with OS-contained tech services, bots, and other new types of software interaction models, everything is changing.

Even what start appear as fairly traditional devices are going to beginning being used and thought of in very different ways. The net result is that the possibility for completely blowing up traditional categorizations will become existent in the new year. Considering of that, it'south going to be time to start having conversations on redefining how the industry thinks about measuring, sizing, and assessing its wellness moving forward.

Prediction 2: VR/AR Hardware Surpasses Wearables

Though it'due south still early days for head-mounted virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) products, the interest and excitement most these types of devices is palpable. Yep, the technologies need to amend, prices need to decrease, and the range of software options needs to widen, merely people who take had the opportunity to spend some time with a quality organization from the likes of HTC, Oculus, or Sony are nearly universally convinced that they've witnessed and partaken in the future. From kids playing games to older adults exploring the world, the range of experiences is growing, and the level of involvement is starting to bubble up past enthusiasts into the mainstream.

Wearables, on the other hand, continue to face lackluster need from most consumers, even subsequently years of mainstream exposure. Sure, there are some bright spots and 2022 is bound to bring some interesting new wearable options, particularly around smart, connected earbuds (or "hearables" as some have dubbed them). Overall, though, the universal appeal for wearables just isn't in that location. In fact, it increasingly looks like smartwatches and other widely hyped wearables are already on the refuse.

As a result, I expect revenues for virtual reality and augmented reality-based hardware devices (and accessories) volition surpass revenues for the wearables market in 2022. While a clear bookkeeping is certainly challenging (see Prediction 1), we tin can wait about $4 billion worldwide for AR/VR hardware versus $3 billion for wearables. Considering of lower prices per unit for fitness-focused wearables, the unit of measurement shipments for wearables will still be college, merely from a business organisation perspective, it's clear that AR/VR volition steal the spotlight from wearables in 2022.

Prediction iii: Mobile App Installs Will Refuse as Tech Services Grow

The incredible growth enabler and platform driver that mobile applications have proven to be over most of the last decade makes it hard to imagine a time when they won't be that relevant, but I believe 2022 volition mark the outset of that unfathomable era. The reasons are many: worldwide smartphone growth has stalled, app stores have go bloated and difficult to navigate, and, most importantly, the general excitement level near mobile applications has dropped to nearly zippo. Study after study has shown that the vast majority of apps that get downloaded rarely, if e'er, get used, and most people consistently rely on a tiny scattering of apps.

Confronting that depressing backdrop, let's also non forget that the platform wars are over and lots of people won, which ways, actually, that nobody won. It's much more than important for companies who previously focused on applications to offer a service that can be used across multiple platforms and multiple devices. Sure, they may still make applications, but those applications are just front-ends and entry points for the real focus of their business: a cloud-based service.

Popular subscription-based tech services such every bit Netflix and Spotify are certainly both great example and beneficiaries of this kind of move, simply I look to see many dissimilar flavors of services grow stronger in 2022. From new types of bot-based software to "invisible" voice-driven interaction models, the types services that nosotros spend a lot of our 2022 computing fourth dimension on will be much different than in the mobile apps era.

Prediction 4: Autonomous Drive Slows, But Assisted Driving Soars

In that location'southward no question that autonomous driving is going to be a disquisitional trend for tech industry and automotive players in 2022, just equally the reality of the technical, regulatory, and standards-based challenges of creating truly autonomous cars becomes more obvious in the new year's day, there's too no question that timelines for these kinds of automobiles will be extended in 2022. Already, some of the early predictions for the end of the decade or 2022 have been moved into 2022, and I predict we'll run into several more of these delays in the new twelvemonth.

This doesn't mean a lot of companies—both mainstream and startup—won't be working on getting these cars out sooner. They certainly will, and we should hear an avalanche of new announcements in the autonomous driving field throughout the year from component makers, Tier ane suppliers, traditional tech companies, car makers and more. Still, this is very hard stuff (both technically and legally) and engineering science that potentially places people'southward lives at stake is a lot different than what'south required to generate a new gadget. It cannot, nor should it be, released at the same pace that we've come to expect from other consumer devices. If, God forbid, we see some additional fatalities in the new twelvemonth that stem from faulty democratic driving features, the delays in deployment could get much worse, especially if they happen via a ridesharing service or other state of affairs where ultimate liability isn't very clear.

In spite of these concerns, nonetheless, I am convinced that nosotros will see some critical new advancements in the slightly less sexy, simply withal incredibly important field of assisted driving technologies. Automated breaking, machine-assisted crash avoidance and other practical assisted driving benefits that can leverage the same kind of hardware and bogus intelligence (AI)-based software that's being touted for fully autonomous driving will likely have a much more than realistic bear upon in 2022. Truth be told, findings from a TECHnalysis Research report show that most consumers are more interested in these incremental enhancements anyway, so this could (and should) be a case where the current technologies actually match the market place's existent needs.

Prediction 5: Smart Domicile Products Consolidate

Most of the early discussions around the smart home market has been for standalone products, designed to do a specific part and meant to be installed by the homeowner or tenant. The Nest thermostat, August smart lock, and various security camera systems are classic examples of this. Individually, many of these products piece of work just fine, but as interested consumers first to piece together different elements into a more complete smart habitation system, problems rapidly get apparent. The bewildering array of different technical standards, platforms, connectivity requirements and more often turn what should be a fun, productive experience into a nightmare. Unfortunately, the event shows few signs of getting better for nigh people (though Prediction half dozen offers one potential solution.)

Despite these concerns, at that place is growing interest in several areas related to smart homes including distributed audio systems (a la Sonos), WiFi extenders and other mesh networking products, and smart speakers, such as Amazon'due south Echo. Once more, connecting all these products can be an result, but so are more basic concerns such equally concrete space, additional power adapters/outlets, and all the other aspects of owning lots of individual devices.

Because of these issues, I predict nosotros'll start to see new "converged" versions of these products that combine a lot of functionality in 2022. Imagine a device, for instance, that is a loftier-quality continued audio speaker, WiFi extender and smart speaker all in ane. Non merely will these ease the setup and reduce the physical requirements of multiple smart dwelling products, they should provide the kind of additional capabilities that the smart home category needs to start highly-seasoned to a wider audience.

Another possibility (and something that'due south probable to occur simultaneously anyway), is that the DIY market for smart dwelling house products stalls out and whatsoever potential growth gets shifted over to service providers like AT&T, Comcast, Vivint and others who offering completely integrated smart home systems. Not only practice these services now incorporate several of the almost popular individual smart home items, they've been tested to work together and give consumers a unmarried place to go for back up.

Prediction vi: Amazon Echo Becomes De Facto Gateway for Smart Homes

As mentioned in Prediction 5, one of the biggest challenges facing the smart home marketplace is the incredibly disruptive set of unlike standards, platforms, and protocols that demand to exist dealt with in social club to make multiple smart home products work together. Since it's extremely unlikely that any of these battles will be resolved by companies giving up on their own efforts and working with others (as logical and user-friendly as that would exist), the just realistic scenario is if i device becomes a de facto standard.

Every bit luck would have information technology, the Amazon Repeat seems to accept earned itself that de facto linchpin role in the modern smart home. Though the Repeat and its siblings are expected to see a keen deal of competition in 2022, the device'southward overall capabilities, in conjunction with the open-ended Skills platform that Amazon created for it, are proving a winning combination. Nigh importantly, the Echo'south Smart Dwelling house Skill API is condign the centre point through which many other smart home devices can work together. In essence, this is turning the Echo into the key gateway device in the domicile, assuasive it to substantially "interpret" between devices that might non otherwise be able to easily work together.

While other devices and dedicated gateways have tried to offering these capabilities, the ongoing success and interest in the Echo (and any ensuing variants) will likely go far the critical component in smart homes for 2022.

Prediction 7: Large Calibration IoT Projects Slow, But Small Projects Explode

The Internet of Things (IoT) is all the buzz in big businesses today, with lots of companies spending a cracking bargain of time and money to try to cash in on the hot new trend. As a number of companies have started to discover, still, the reality of IoT isn't about as glamorous equally the hype. Not only practise many IoT projects crave bringing together disparate parts of an organization that don't always like, or trust, each other (notably, It and operations), just measuring the "success" of these projects can be even harder than the project itself.

On acme of that, many IoT projects are seen as a critical office of larger business transformations, a designation that nearly guarantees their failure. Even if they aren't part of a major transformation, they however confront the difficulty of making sense of the enormous amount of data that instrumenting the concrete world (a fancy way of proverb collecting lots of sensor data) entails. They may generate big data, but that certainly doesn't always interpret to big value. Even though analytics tools are improving, sometimes information technology'south just the simple findings that make the biggest difference.

For this reason, the potential for IoT amongst small or even tiny businesses is even larger. While data scientists may exist required for big projects at big companies, just a little common sense in conjunction with merely a few of the correct information points can brand an enormous difference with these small companies. Given this opportunity, I expect a broad range of simple IoT solutions focused on traditional business similar agriculture and small-calibration manufacturing to make a big impact in 2022.

Prediction eight: AI-Based Bots Move to the Mainstream

Information technology's certainly easy to predict that Bogus Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning volition have a major affect on the tech market in 2022, but information technology's non necessarily easy to know exactly where the biggest benefits from these technologies will occur. The clear early leaders are applications involving paradigm recognition and processing (oft called machine vision), which includes everything from populating names onto photos posted to social media, to assisted and autonomous driving features in connected cars.

Some other expanse of major evolution is with natural language processing, which is used to analyze audio and recognize and respond to spoken words. Exciting, applied applications of deep learning applied to audio and language include automated, real-fourth dimension translation services which tin let people who speak different languages to communicate with each other using their own, familiar native tongue.

Natural language processing algorithms are as well essential elements for chatbots and other types of automatic assistance systems that are bound to become significantly more pop in 2022, particularly in the US (which is a chip backside Red china in this area). From customer assistance and technical back up agents, through more intelligent personal assistants that move with you from device to device, expect to have a lot more interactions with AI-driven bots in 2022.

Prediction ix: Non-Gaming Applications for AR and VR Grow Faster than Gaming

Though much of the early attending in the AR/VR market has rightfully been focused on gaming, one of the primary reasons I expect to see a healthy AR/VR hardware environment in the new year is because of the non-gaming applications I believe volition be released in 2022. The Google Earth experience for the HTC Vive gave united states of america an early inkling of the possibilities, only it's articulate that educational, training, travel and experiential applications for these devices offer potential for widespread entreatment beyond the strong, merely nevertheless limited, hard-core gaming marketplace.

Evolution tools for non-gaming AR and VR applications are still in their infancy, and then this prediction might take two years to completely play itself out. Still, I'g convinced that just equally gaming plays a disquisitional just non overwhelming role in the usage of smartphones, PCs and other computing devices, then too volition it play an important but non primary role for AR and VR devices. Likewise, in the near term, the non-gaming portion of AR and VR applications is quite small, and then from a growth perspective, it should be relatively piece of cake for these types of both consumer and business concern-focused applications to abound at a faster step than gaming apps this yr.

Prediction x: Tech Firms Identify More Accent on Non-Tech Fields

While many in the tech industry have not bad trepidation nearly working nether a Trump administration for the next several years, the incoming president's impact could lead to some surprisingly different ways of thinking and focus in the tech industry. Near importantly, if the early chatter about improvements to infrastructure and enhancements to average citizen's 24-hour interval-to-day lives come to pass, I predict nosotros will run across more tech companies making focused efforts on applying their technologies to non-tech fields, including agriculture, line-fishing, structure, manufacturing, and many more.

While the projects may not be equally big, as sexy or as exciting as building the coolest new gadgets, the commonage potential benefits could show to exist much greater over time. Whether information technology's through unproblematic IoT-based initiatives or other kinds of clever applications of existing or new technologies, the opportunity for the tech industry to assist drive the greater adept is very existent. It'southward also something I hope they accept seriously. Practical technologies that could ameliorate the crop yields by merely a few pct of not just a few of the richest farms, but of all the smallest farms in the United states of america, for example, could take an enormously positive impact on the U.s. economy, every bit well equally the full general population'south view of the tech industry.

Some of these types of efforts are already underway with smaller agro tech firms, just I expect more partnerships or endeavors from bigger firms in 2022.

Bob O'Donnell is the founder and primary analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting and market place research firm. Yous can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech. This article was originally published on Tech.pinions.