Summery

• A bit of history
• Examples today
• What is Iot
• Why it’s important
• Pro’s and Cons
• Iot vs IoE and M2M
• To sum it up, best definition

What is the history of the Internet of Things?

Almost as soon as the phrase IoT (Internet of things) was coined by Kevin Ashton an ecosystem started up combining a multitude of systems technology in to one term.

The idea of adding intelligence to basic objects was discussed throughout the 1980s and 1990s. But technology wasn’t ready. Let’s be honest we are either old enough or we’ve been told that “When I was your age ……. Computers were the size of our living room”. Spares, parts and chips were too big and bulky and there was no way for objects to communicate effectively.

The Internet of Things is making the fabric of the world around us work smarter not harder and more responsive, merging the digital and physical universes.

Some well-known examples for Internet of Things applications today are:

• Amazon Echo and Google Home
• Wearable devices/fitness trackers (e.g., Jawbone Up, Fitbit, Pebble)
• Automation Systems (Examples: Niagara N4 Workbench, Cisco, Honeywell and more..)
• Smart energy meters

What is the Internet of Things?

IoT, refers to the billions of physical devices and systems around the world that can be connected to each other and the internet, all collecting and sharing data. Consisting of web-enabled smart devices that use embedded systems, such as processors and communication hardware, to collect, send and act on data they acquire from their environments.

IoT devices share the sensor data they collect by connecting to an IoT gateway or other edge device where data is either sent to the cloud to be analyzed or analyzed locally. Even though devices do most of the work without human intervention, they still need to be programmed and set up via various protocols to be able to interact and access the relevant data and instructions

Thanks to the arrival of affordable systems, hardware and wireless networks, it’s possible to turn almost anything, from smart homes interactions like alarm systems to something as big as a data center generator monitoring, into a part of the IoT.

Why IoT is important?

IoT enables companies to automate processes and reduce costs. Connecting the different objects and adding systems controls to them adds a level of digital intelligence to devices that would be otherwise manually controlled.

Enabling them to communicate real-time data. Most companies will use Digital dashboards or Analytics dashboards to present this info in real time statistics. Human error especially in larger Building Automation systems could cause large scale costs to be incurred.

As such, IoT is one of the most important technologies of everyday life, and it will continue to pick up steam as more businesses realize the potential of connected devices to keep them competitive.

How big is the Internet of Things?

The term and technology get bigger every day. Currently there are already more connected things than people in the world.

Gartner, predicts that the enterprise and automotive sectors will account for 5.8 billion devices this year, up almost a quarter on 2019. Utilities will be the highest user of IoT, thanks to the continuing roll out of smart meters. Security devices, in the form of intruder detection and web cameras will be the second biggest use of IoT devices. Building automation – like connected lighting – will be the fastest growing sector, followed by automotive (connected cars) and healthcare (monitoring of chronic conditions). If you would like to read more on this forecast methodology click here.

Pros and cons of IoT

Some of the advantages of IoT include the following:

• The ability to access information from anywhere at any time on any device;
• Improved communication between connected electronic devices;
• automating tasks helping to improve the quality of a business’s services and reducing the need for human intervention.
• Real live data on dashboards to review costs via analytics dashboards

Some disadvantages of IoT include the following:

• They are still devised that have to be integrated and told what to do
• As the number of connected devices increases and more information is shared between devices, the potential that the systems can be corrupted by not being set up correctly increases

Thankfully most of the hardware hitting the market is being setup to be open source making it possible for multiple protocols to “speak” to each other.

What are the benefits of the Internet of Things for consumers?

Making our homes and offices smarter, more measurable makes our lives easier. Smart speakers like Amazon’s Echo and Google Home make it easier to play music, set timers, or get information.

Smart buildings and offices can, for instance, reduce energy costs using sensors that detect how many occupants are in a room. The temperature can adjust automatically via the building automation system, turning the air conditioner (centralized Hvac) on if sensors detect a conference room is full or turning the heat down if everyone in the office has gone home.

IoT vs IoE vs M2M vs Others

So “Internet of Things” is the most popular description describing this new Interconnected world.

In later posts we will talk about the next concepts, the ecosystem is so large we can keep you reading for hours.

IoT and other terms that have been proposed but don’t mean exactly all the same are

• Machine to machine communication M2M
• Web of Things
• Industry 4.0
• Industrial internet (of Things)
• Smart systems
• Smart home systems
• Intelligent systems

So to sum it up, loosely put .. what would be the best definition?

McKinsey short definition appears quite logic:

“Sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects are linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet.“