The Internet of Things is widely considered to be of major – and increasing – significance as a global socio-technical phenomenon. However, answering the question of what the Internet of Things is turns out to be surprisingly problematic. The problem is not the lack of an answer: indeed, the majority of writings on the Internet of Things seek to address this question in some manner. Rather, the problem is the range and diversity of answers that are proposed, leading to a troubling perplexity about how these answers might separately or collectively describe the Internet of Things. Resolving this perplexity is a highly pertinent challenge given the putative importance of the Internet of Things………….