Learning Digital Identity

Chapter 20. Identity on the Internet of Things

I use a Philips Sonicare toothbrush. One of its features is a little yellow light that comes on to tell me to change the toothbrush head. The first time the light came on, I wondered how I would reset it once I replaced the head. I even googled it to find out.

Turns out I needn’t have bothered. Once I changed the head, the light went off. This didn’t happen when I simply removed the old head and put the same one back on. Each toothbrush head has a unique identity that the toothbrush recognizes. This identity is used to signal head replacement as well as to put the toothbrush into different modes based on the type of head installed.

Philips calls this technology BrushSync, but underneath the branding it’s using RFID (radio frequency identification). Each head has an RFID chip embedded in it. The toothbrush body reads the data off the head and adjusts its internal state in the appropriate way.

I like this RFID use case because it’s got clear benefits for both Philips and its customers. Philips sells more toothbrush heads—so the Internet of Things (IoT) use case is clearly aligned with business goals here. Customers get reminders to replace their toothbrush heads and can reset the reminder by simply doing what they’d do anyway—switching the head.

There aren’t many privacy concerns at present—the toothbrush doesn’t connect to the internet and phone home to Philips. But as more and more products begin to include RFID chips, you could imagine ...