I think there are a lot of opportunities for indie development. We build a lot of more-story elderly housing and in those you have a doorbell and gate opening system. This used to be pretty costly because you needed a professional system with wiring and what not.
These days we do it with IoT. Basically we run our own private and encrypted internet, LoraWAN, and we setup a small $10 door control in each apartment which connects to the main door via our slow private net.
The components and software was developed by a single student at a hackaton.
Similarly we have a lot of town history on record. We've given people access to this, and a group of student went around town setting up 957 little Bluetooth transmitters which emit these stories to their app all over town.
Another example is a medicine cabin that monitors it patients/elders take their meds and automatically alarms staff if they don't which is something we offer today. The plastic bag and electronics that does it were developed by a small local bakery with two employees.
I do agree with you in that some areas are going to require google sized companies. But things like the raspberry pi and all these small/cheap "standard" components which anyone can build themselves are really shaping up to change a lot of things and it's not big companies who are driving it forward.
These days we do it with IoT. Basically we run our own private and encrypted internet, LoraWAN, and we setup a small $10 door control in each apartment which connects to the main door via our slow private net.
The components and software was developed by a single student at a hackaton.
Similarly we have a lot of town history on record. We've given people access to this, and a group of student went around town setting up 957 little Bluetooth transmitters which emit these stories to their app all over town.
Another example is a medicine cabin that monitors it patients/elders take their meds and automatically alarms staff if they don't which is something we offer today. The plastic bag and electronics that does it were developed by a small local bakery with two employees.
I do agree with you in that some areas are going to require google sized companies. But things like the raspberry pi and all these small/cheap "standard" components which anyone can build themselves are really shaping up to change a lot of things and it's not big companies who are driving it forward.