The Internet of Things

Can you imagine day-to-day life in the future? You might probably imagine several robots that help automate your life and everything is on easy mode for you, you can also imagine that there is little thought on your part in regards to these automated robots. Well, what if I tell you that that future is already on its way?

The idea behind the Internet of Things (IoT) has been around for quite a while but it wasn’t until 1999 that the term was first coined by Kevin Ashton. However, it wasn’t until 2010 when China included the Internet of Things in its 12th Five Year Plan that it gained traction. The Chinese government invested heavily in the Research and Development of the IoT concept and it has paid back wonderful returns. The Chinese IoT market size has doubled from 56 billion dollars to 100 billion dollars in just the past three years and the market is expected to surpass the 300 billion dollars mark in 2025 and this will represent 26 per cent of the global market.

The Internet of Things means connecting everything. It is the network that connects physical objects by embedding them with sensors and the capacity to access the internet and transfer data to each other. Things connected to the internet before IoT was limited to desktops, laptops, phones, and tablets. With IoT, these devices have rapidly multiplied and practically any device can be connected to the internet today. The IoT concept was developed because of the cumbersome process of inputting data and the need for seamless processing of data.

The smart home is the most relevant application of IoT today, and it is being rapidly integrated into our daily lives. Today’s tech giants are in a fierce battle to establish dominance in this sector and devices such as Google’s Nest, Apple’s Homepod and Amazon’s Echo lead the way. A homeowner can now have a system of interconnected appliances that help manage the flow of his daily life, such that when the alarm rings, the smart home can open curtains, make coffee, play music, heat water meant for a shower without him even leaving his bed. This all sounds so fascinating but it is only possible because these appliances are interconnected and exchange data with each other.

For consumers, IoT represents control of the household that did not previously exist, we can now track how much energy each appliance uses and this only helps to optimize spending. IoT also assures users of a degree of comfort and better security than we had, you might have come across videos on the internet of monitoring systems like Ring keeping surveillance of a house and alerting the authorities in the event of breaking in.

There are other applications for IoT in today’s world beyond consumer use, industrial use of IoT has also begun to rollout. In healthcare, IoT provides various benefits including the ability to closely monitor patients through data analysis. In hospitals, IoT technologies are widely employed to handle tasks like pharmaceutical and medical instrument inventory management. In agriculture, IoT-based smart farming systems can use linked sensors to monitor things like light, temperature, humidity, and soil moisture in crop fields. IoT can also be used to automate irrigation systems.

There are other benefits attached to industrial IoT applications such as improved efficiency and this is evident in the positive impact that it will have on our current environmental issues. IoT based energy applications help optimize energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of companies. Industries that use this technology have recorded significant improvement in their energy consumption and IoT has been regarded as the enabler of the renewable energy movement.

IoT will only make the world a better place and we are already seeing such improvements in self-driving cars. The automobile industry has been taken by storm because of IoT with a relatively young company like Tesla now worth 942 billion dollars; growing to be the 6th most valuable company in the world in just a decade. Car owners can now operate a car remotely and cars can even book a service appointment by themselves. IoT also enables cars to rapidly improve their use life with constant software upgrades, a far cry from the times when cars only depreciate with wear and tear.

However, some fears still prevail in the IoT space with concerns that this technology will just help make a hacker’s work easier. A hacker only needs to gain access to your smart home or car and will be rewarded with a treasure trove of data that can and will be used against you. There are also fears that it will lead to an over-reliance on technology which can cause a breakdown of society if the internet crashes. We have seen examples of the internet crashing with apps like Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp having occasional blips, and the fear is that in an IoT world, any crash can lead to catastrophic damage.