Internet of Things (IoT)

The internet of things is a network of physical things like vehicles, appliances, machines and that uses the sensors and API’s to connect and exchange data over the internet. This technology is fully depend on the Application Programming Interface (API’s) that connects the devices to the internet. 

A thing, in the Internet of Things, can be a person with a heart monitor implant, a farm animal with a biochip transponder, an automobile that has built-in sensors to alert the driver when tire pressure is low or any other natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and provided with the ability to transfer data over a network. 

Evolution of IoT

IoT has evolved from the convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and the internet. The convergence has torn down the walls between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). The Internet of Things (IoT), also sometimes referred to as the Internet of Everything (IoE), consists of all the web-enabled devices that collect, send and act on data they acquire from their surrounding environments using embedded sensors, processors and communication hardware.

The IoT platform enables the operations that manage, control and monitors devices as well as maintains secure connectivity between devices, data collection, and sensor management. Everything is becoming more and more interactive. The Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon is growing and, of course, reaching the world of mobile applications. Therefore, faced with an increasing demand for the Internet of Things, applications designed for smart devices other than smartphones will be needed and developers will have to keep innovating to meet the different needs. There is a great impact on the technology that it can be controlled by the user’s smartphones. It is evolving day by day. By using IoT anyone can control it by his or her smartphones. This technology is growing and also the devices and objects with built-in sensors are connected to an internet of things platform which integrates data from different devices. These powerful IoT platforms can point exactly what the information is useful and what can safely be ignored.

Advantages of IoT: Following are the advantages of the IoT(Internet of Things).

1. It is the fact that IoT network saves time and money so it is beneficial for all not only for the one. These IoT systems improve quality of life and deliver fast and accurate services with minimum utilization of energy.
2. It can be used for patient monitoring as different types of wireless sensors are installed on the patient’s body. They provide all the required information of the patient under treatment. As the wireless sensors communicate with the IoT network.
3. IoT technology is used in home security devices. These can be monitored or controlled either by locally or remotely by using applications on your smartphones. These can also be used in home automation environment or devices like camera, security alarms, door locks, sensors etc. 
4. IoT technology is used for energy conservation, shipping, individual tracking etc.
5. It is kind of similar to M2M but it has more advantage over M2M. M2M is only used for machine to machine communication. Whether in IoT things can communicate themselves to its owner indicating or sharing its location and condition.
6. In IoT technology, resource consumption is optimized.

Disadvantages of IoT: As the technology has the advantages then it also have some disadvantages.

1. In the IoT privacy is the major concern as multiple vendors are involved in it because multiple technologies are used in it. 
2. The 2nd main concern is the loss of jobs. Implementation of IoT leads to loss of jobs for unskilled employees. 
3. It uses multiple technologies whose architectures are different than one another. This creates a very complex IoT system. This also requires skilled workers requiring knowledge of multiple technologies.
4. It will take some time for the IoT technology to become completely stable as there are new and upcoming standards being integrated in the IoT systems.
5. The main disadvantage of this technology is that by an implementation of IoT our lives will be controlled by technology and will be dependent on it for every little thing.