The Transforma Insights Blog

Batteries have become high value, data rich assets that need to be tracked throughout increasingly complex global supply chains. The rapid growth of electric vehicles, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and other battery powered applications has created new challenges around battery traceability, sustainability, and lifecycle management. Unlike most electrical and mechanical components in electronic devices, batteries contain critical raw materials often including lithium, cobalt, and nickel, whose sourcing, environmental impact, use, and end of life treatment are under increasing scrutiny.

Indoor air quality has emerged as one of the most critical, and yet historically overlooked factors which has shaped educational outcomes in the United States. Right from K-12 schools to large university campuses, institutions are increasingly recognising that the air students breathe indoors directly affects their health, cognitive performance, and overall well-being.

Electrification, powered by renewable sources, is accelerating across industries from transport and heating to industrial processes as countries push toward decarbonisation. While the demand for electricity is rising rapidly, the grid that underpins it is under increasing strain. Built for a centralised, predictable energy system, today’s grid must support intelligent connectivity systems, distributed energy resources (DERs), and dynamic consumption patterns.

Many studies have shown that the introduction of CCTV cameras has reduced a range of crimes and violations in monitored areas. In the US and the UK, for example, CCTV installations have resulted in reductions in several crimes, especially theft and robberies in high risk zones. However, this is only a part of the story. These cameras were and often still are monitored by human operators, leading to false alarms due to inaccuracies in detecting abnormal or suspicious activities. With the advent of AI enabled CCTV, autonomous monitoring is now possible.

In this blog post, Matt Hatton explores the main trends he noted from Mobile World Congress and Embedded World trade shows in March 2026. The over-riding trend with regard to IoT was the technology is taking a back seat to commercial and operational issues. And, arguably, not before time.

For generations, natural gas has been an essential energy source for cooking, heating, electricity generation, and industrial use cases, and increasingly also transportation. It is a non-renewable energy source but is one of the cleanest fossil fuels that causes less harm to the environment. Fortunately, the use of renewable energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, and biomass is expanding each year. As infrastructure for these energy sources improves, dependence on finite fossil fuel resources like natural gas will continue to decline.

Prior to 2021, smart speakers recorded strong annual growth, reflecting rapid early-stage market expansion. This early surge in smart speaker adoption was fuelled by their novelty, convenience, and promise they served to become a centralised smart home interface. Growth rates declined thereafter, due to market saturation, greater availability of substitute products, and continued privacy concerns. In this blog post, we examine key market factors that are challenging the position of smart speakers, as well as the strategies vendors are employing in response.

In 2024 non-communicable or chronic diseases were responsible for 43 million deaths globally. This has led healthcare organisations to adopt technological solutions such as IoT connected devices to remotely monitor patients to reduce the burden on healthcare staff and decrease the need for hospital visits.

One of our 2026 IoT Transition Topics, that we expect to define the IoT market in the coming year, is ‘The increasing requirement for localisation’. In this blog post we explore the forms that localisation will take, the drivers of it, and the implications for how IoT is delivered. The blog post touches on a number of topics that will be the subjects of reports forthcoming in 2026.

A recent Transforma Insights report on the IoT market for Inventory Management & Monitoring identified a huge growth in the market for electronic shelf labels over the coming decade, and beyond. In this blog post, Suruchi Dhingra examines the reasons for the growth in ESLs and where they are being adopted, in vast quantities.