• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, February 15, 2016

Along with smart watches, smart appliances, smart homes and smart buildings come smart cities.

And based on a new research report, the Internet of Things devices that go into making cities smart will be growing significantly.

The market size of the things that go into making a city smart will grow from $52 billion last year to $148 billion by 2020, according to the new global forecast by MarketsandMarkets.

More than 200 smart city projects are underway around the world, fueling the demand for products and services from IoT vendors, service providers, platform companies and consultants, according to the report.

One of the key growth areas is in location analytics. Many of the solutions devised in this arena likely can be converted for marketing uses later, since marketers will be needing similar location and customer tracking capabilities.

North America is expected to dominate the IoT in smart cities over the next several years, with an increasing number funded by government grants.

Other aspects of smart cities also will be relevant for marketing, since some of the technologies will be the same.

For example, opportunities for smart cities include smart meters, home gateways, smart appliances and smart plugs. These are the same types of technologies that will be found in smart homes.

While funding for smart cities may be flowing, don’t expect a totally smart city to appear overnight, since there are countless elements that make it up along with major hurdles, some foreseen and others not.

But with many smart objects already in the mainstream, the lessons are on the way to being learned, along with pieces of the smart city puzzle falling into place.