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Another area for automation is fitness, and as an avid cyclist I'm constantly amazed at what my Garmin Edge 820 bike computer tells me about my recent road bike rides:
Fitness level after the first 3 miles
When following a course when to turn Left or Right
During a ride it can tell me of segments that I mark and show how close I am to beating my best time, or the time of another rider
My VO2 max number
Incoming texts and phone calls with caller ID
Best 20 minute power number
Maximum speed reached, average speed
Moving time, wall time
Time spent in 5 hear rate zones
Time spent in 7 power zones
During a ride I have a custom-defined screen that displays analytics to help me measure what's happening:
Speed
Revolutions Per Minute, RPM of my pedal cadence
Heart rate in Beats Per Minute
Average power for the last three seconds
Total distance in miles
Total elevation in feet
Battery life remaining in percentage
Time of day
When riding a course I get a notification of any upcoming turns, starting at 500 feet prior and then counting down the distance to the turn. After making a turn it tells me the complete name of the new street. If I get off the course it prompts me to make a U-turn and then provides directions to get back on the course.
Garmin has engineered a powerful bike computer that communicates with my cell phone using Bluetooth technology, and all of the bike sensors with the ANT+ protocol.
All of this technology was science fiction 10 years ago.
The people poo-pooing IoT are the same sort of people who looked at the Apple 1 and saw "use it to store your recipes" not VisiCalc; then looked at the early internet and saw Pets.com, not Amazon; then looked at early smartphones and saw weight, cost & restricted battery life, not Uber and Snapchat.
It's always easier to see the failures and fumbling (and there is always a LOT of that at the start) than to see the not-yet-existent successes.
I'd love to see the V2V capabilities for autos and cyclists broadly commercialized, so that we have fewer close calls between bikes and cars on the road.
Garmin has a cycling rear radar to alert cyclists to approaching cars:
