Opinion: Treat Data as a Product — Why 'Query as a Product' Matters for Pet IoT in 2026
As smart pet devices proliferate, the teams that win will treat data queries like products. Here’s an opinionated playbook for product, data, and support teams building pet IoT experiences.
Opinion: Treat Data as a Product — Why 'Query as a Product' Matters for Pet IoT in 2026
Hook: Pet wearables produce streams of messy telemetry. In 2026, product teams that formalize queries as owned products — with SLAs, docs, and tests — unlock faster feature building and better owner experiences.
What Is ‘Query as a Product’ in Practice?
It’s the idea that each commonly used data output (e.g., daily activity summary, geofence breach) is a product with a contract, an owner, and defined SLAs. This approach reduces confusion across teams and improves reliability. For a direct walkthrough of the argument, see the sector opinion piece: Opinion: Why 'Query as a Product' Is the Next Team Structure for Data in 2026.
Architecture & Edge Decisions
Edge processing matters: precompute high-value summaries near the device. For runtime choices and benchmarks, consult edge function comparisons: Benchmarking the New Edge Functions. Choose runtimes that reduce latency for owner-facing features.
Privacy, Consent, and Owner Controls
Data products must map to consent models. Give owners granular controls over which queries are retained and shared. Integrate privacy-by-design and clear opt-outs in onboarding flows.
Operationalizing Summaries for Support
AI summarization pre-reads telemetry and surfaces likely causes for support agents. This reduces ticket time and improves outcome consistency. Explore how AI summarization reshapes agent workflows here: How AI Summarization is Changing Agent Workflows.
Testing & Observability
Build unit tests for queries and own the dashboard metrics. Use sequence diagrams for distributed systems observability — they remain a core technique for complex microservices: Advanced Sequence Diagrams for Microservices Observability in 2026.
Commercial and Support Benefits
Data products accelerate monetizable features (activity reports, training analytics) and establish trust. When queries are reliable, owners return: retention tactics from commerce map directly to subscription and consumable feature design (Retention Tactics).
Final Argument
Treat telemetry as a product and you move from ad-hoc analytics to predictable value delivery. Teams aligned around query ownership ship faster, reduce breakage, and improve owner satisfaction.