If you are a techie gadget freak and must have the coolest toys, then the Internet of Things is what you have been waiting for your whole life. For others, let me explain;
Smartphone has ruined everything!
Internet of Things (IoT) is the latest marketing buzzword in hi-tech, which refers to the trend of connecting -things. Think of it as the evolution of a dumb Cell Phone to a ‘Smart-phone’. Same thing here, you hear about the Connected Home and its smart thermostat, smart cameras, smart lightbulb, all except for ‘smart car’ as that was already taken by this urban-shopping-cart-mobile. Not to miss a beat however, the smart vehicles we refer to as ‘connected’ cars, so collectively we call all these (and more), ‘things’ in the ecosystem called ‘The Internet Of Things’…
Sadly, most of the advertised connected devices are not connected to a common owner’s ecosystem at all, if by that we mean that devices should talk to each other and share information to make the owners life easier, safer, or better informed. The industry such it is today in its incubating phase, we see a lot of discouraging attempts at connecting the disconnected devices, often neglecting the end-user needs, but over time the things will get better, and more accessible plug n’ play devices will emerge.
Internet of things promises a lot of financial gain to those who enable it, and without a doubt the market demand will establish the norms by which the consumer will make the purchasing decisions.
We do have a bright future ahead of us.
With the help of ‘Big Data Analytics’ (another marketing term for making sense of the information), we will soon see the whole cities loaded with connected sensors, cameras, traffic lights, that continuously analyze the behavior and feed the status information back to platforms that are able to perform tasks based on the data provided, without human intervention. We already have some wearable devices that are used for remote patient monitoring that alert the doctors of patient’s physical and mental state. Most of us wear a pedometer with the little information that it gathers we use it to analyze and calculate our daily physical activity. Trackers and sensors exist in the industrial space as well, all meant to prevent maintenance and feed the status info.
Add to this machine learning… There is enough to make your head explode!
With advanced LTE speeds most of the devices are mobile, and do not rely on a Wi-Fi connectivity to function. Cars for example already offer telematics and infotainment streaming services globally, that was merely a dream back in the 3G/HSDPA era.
IoT data is a terrible thing to waste.
Most of the information collected by the connected devices either end up in a silo and never get used, or the receiver of the data does not know what to do with it. IoT is only as efficient as the Big Data Analytics behind it. Otherwise may as well be garbage you don’t understand. Another damaging factor in the consumer segment is that most of the things connected today are selfish with the data they gather. The silo’d approach to developing a 1:1 relationship between the owner and the device hardware creates the disconnect between the device and the ecosystem of the owner’s IoT.
I am looking forward to seeing the IoT devices to begin sharing data in a unified ecosystem of connected things so that consumers can truly benefit from all data working tougher to improve our daily lives.