Enabling Support of Legacy Devices for a More Sustainable Internet of Things: A Position Paper on the Need to Proactively Avoid an "Internet of Trash"

Despite the increasing concerns on sustainability issues worldwide, IoT devices are still being designed unsustainably, and often end up as e-waste in landfill after a very short lifespan. This state of affairs is alarming, as we expect hundreds of billion connected devices in a few years, and calls for solutions to help maximizing the usable lifetime of IoT systems. In this paper, we review this problem in detail, and argue that legacy devices using outdated wireless technologies could make use of cross-technology communication to directly interact with newer IoT products, thereby increasing their durability. We also summarize our recent efforts in this domain and highlight how they could help in designing sustainable IoT systems.