With a few exceptions, the long-promised revolution of gadgets that know stuff about you and use that data to do stuff for you has been running nowhere on a hamster wheel.

Yes, there are sexy, smart thermostats—for those who can afford them—that will automatically make homes toasty warm this winter before you leave work. Despite the rise of Nest, selling the general public on connected devices has not gotten much farther than smartphones and activity trackers. As seen with September’s fiscal implosion of New York-based Quirky, getting consumers onboard with the would-be Internet of Things trend is a hard sell.

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