Smart cities are expected to use 1.1 billion connected things this year, rising to 9.7 billion by 2020, according to Gartner.
Smart homes and smart commercial buildings will represent 45% of total connected things in use in 2015 due to investment and service opportunity, and Gartner estimates that this will rise to 81% by 2020.
"Technology and services providers (TSPs) need to start to plan, engage and position their offerings now," said Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research VP at Gartner. "The majority of Internet of Things (IoT) spending for smart cities will come from the private sector.”
Residential citizens will lead the way by increasingly investing in smart-home solutions, with the number of connected things used in smart homes to surpass 1 billion units in 2017.
These include smart LED lighting, healthcare monitoring, smart locks and various sensors for such things as motion detection or carbon monoxide. Smart LED lighting will record the highest growth of IoT consumer applications, from 6 million units in 2015 to 570 million units by 2020.
Light will move from being an illumination source to a communications carrier incorporating safety, health, pollution and personalized services.
Also there are a number of IoT deployments for on-street and off-street parking guidance, road traffic guidance and traffic flow metering — already being done in California and the United Kingdom.