IoT “Internet of Things” Explained
IoT or “Internet of things” is the new technology advancement taking the IT industry by storm, with every report projecting the certain explosion of the usage of IoT products. IoT is not as new of a technology as most people would think or as recent media headlines seems to portray it to be. The first Internet appliance was a coke machine in 1982 at the Carnegie Mellon University which was able to report its inventory levels. The term “IoT” or “Internet of Things” was later coined in 1999 by Kevin Ashton. If the concept of IoT has been around for a while now, why the sudden rise in interest, and how does this affect us all?
Firstly, what is IoT? Simply putting it, IoT relates to anything, natural or man-made that can be assigned an IP address and be provided with the ability to transfer or transmit data over a network. This could be a heart monitor, a biochip transponder, an automobile sensor or a smart lighting switch. Basically an IoT is anything that can communicate and transfer data over a network.
Most IoT devices on the market right now communicate mainly between machine to machine (M2M), which are often referred to as smart products. An example would be Smart Lighting control.
There are quite a number of reasons for the sudden surge of IoT. One key reason would be the increase in technological advancement, mainly the huge increase in the address space of IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6). IPv6 is a set of specifications from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which is the body that defines standard internet operations protocols. This address space increase means that we can now assign every single atom on the planet an IPv6 address.
Now, what does all this communication between devices and transfer of data means for us all? The applications of IoT are endless. Think about hundreds and thousands of devices connected, sending, analyzing, and communicating information and working for you, all in real time. The applications cross different industries and sectors, from smarter natural disaster management, smarter urban management, smarter healthcare and smarter lighting.
Think about your lights turning on as you enter into your office conference room for a meeting. Imagine, you been about to schedule when you lights turn on and off, your lights automatically turning off when you leave a room. Or getting an alert anytime someone turns on you lights manually and been able to analyzing in real time your energy consumptions. This not only saves you time and energy as your whole lighting experience would be fully automated, you would also be able to collect and analysis data which can be used for future decision making. These are the realities and possibilities with IoT products.
From the looks of things, IoT technology is taking off at a very fast rate. With both technological advancements, the overwhelming applications and as people starts understanding the advantages of IoT, there is no doubt that IoT is here to stay.
Interesting article to create awareness and arouse people's interest for further research but it's good to note that IoT research is also ongoing.
Well you don't need the 'IoT' to achieve some of the xamples which are mentioned. Automating the lights and measuring energy consumption real time do not really require data to be transferred via long winded packets via multiple routers and so on. So we must be a bit clearer about what the wider connectivity can provide which has not been so easily or better done via local more efficient connectivity. Clearly features like remote access, via the Internet, to a local sub system are useful as is the ability to derive more abstracted information from multiple systems (you might imagine outdoor climate sensors from many homes providing their data not just to the localised heating system but also to the met office). Conversely climate prediction results can be fed back to other homes to provide longer term prediction information useful for slow dynamic systems such as under floor or storage heating. However would you want the IoT structure to micro manage the detailed automation features at the local structure? I'm not so sure about that.