Unblackboxing Smart Things—A Multilayer Taxonomy and Clusters of Nontechnical Smart Thing Characteristics

The Internet of Things (IoT), which describes the equipment of physical objects with sensors, actuators, computing logic, and connectivity, has attracted much attention. Although many facets of the IoT have already been explored, existing works either treat smart things as black box or focus on their technical characteristics. From an engineering management perspective, however, also a profound understanding of nontechnical smart thing characteristics is key. Hence, in this article, we develop and evaluate a corresponding multilayer taxonomy based on the latest IoT literature and a deliberately broad sample of 200 smart things, which covers the diversity of smart things available on the market. Based on 11 dimensions, the taxonomy enables classifying smart things according to the layers of established IoT architectures. Based on our sample, we infer five clusters, each covering a typical combination of nontechnical smart thing characteristics occurring in practice. These results extend our understanding of the IoT by structuring nontechnical characteristics of smart things and by abstracting the diversity of smart things into artefacts with manageable complexity. Our results inspire future research on the adoption, affordances, and design of smart things. Moreover, engineering managers can use our results in early phases of product development and process reengineering projects.