IoT (Internet of Things)
Contributed By - Hari Gottipati
Imagine a world where billions of devices can sense, communicate and share information. The sensors can continuously collect the data, and the data will be analyzed and used to initiate ac-tions/alerts. The mined intelligence out of the collected data can be utilized for planning, decision making, automation, etc. From Homes to Cities, Offices to Industries, Hospitals to Parks, Cars to Planes; all can leverage the Internet of Things to become Smart Things.
According to Gartner, 11 billion devices are connected to the Internet, and this number will reach to 20 billion by 2020. IoT devices worldwide will jump to 125 billion in 2030, according to the new analysis from IHS Markit.
Global spending on the IoT was $737 billion in 2016, and this number will reach $1.29 trillion by 2020 according to IDC. According to GE, IoT will add a staggering $15 trillion to global GDP by 2030—the equivalent of China’s entire current economy.
What is IoT
The concept behind the Internet is so simple - connect computers to share the data. Since then, we extended the idea to connect more devices to the Internet. The Internet of Things extends the internet connectivity beyond computers (desktops, laptops), smartphones and tablets to physical objects.
IoT is a system where objects/things/items in the physical world with a sensor (embed or at-tached) and an identifier are connected to the Internet via wireless or wired Internet connection. The things can collect and transfer the data over a network without manual intervention. IoT re-lies on various local area networks such as Ethernet, Wi-Fi, NFC, RFID, Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, Zigbee, Z-Wave, etc. IoT can also rely on various cellular networks such as GSM/GPRS/EDGE (2G), UMTS/HSPA (3G), LTE (4G), etc.
History & Father of the Internet of Things
In 1997, Kevin Ashton with a bachelor’s degree in Scandinavian studies worked as an assistant branding manager in London at Procter & Gamble (P&G), and his job was to help launch a line of cosmetics Oil of Olay. During that time, he visited a local store where he found that Hazlenut lipstick always seemed to be sold out. Upon checking with P&G’s supply chain people, he learned that plenty of that shade was in the warehouse. His people tried to convince him that one store couldn’t keep that shade in stock, but he wanted to track where the lipsticks are in real time, without anyone telling him about those. His thinking of the much better way to track prod-ucts attracted P&D leaders in Cincinnati office, and they pushed him to explore the idea further.
Around the same time, retailers started experimenting loyalty cards with an embedded tiny chip (later called RFID) which can transmit the small bits of data on the chip wirelessly. After learning how radio-enabled chips can transmit the data wirelessly, a thought occurred to him - what if I embed the same chip in the lipstick package and if a wireless network could read that data? What if it could tell the store what was on the shelves? This thought led him to dig into the radio chip further. At the time, RFID costs a few dollars, but he was confident that it could be manu-factured at a fraction of that cost. Then he started giving the presentation on RFID technology to promote the concept of connecting physical objects to a network. One of his presentation titles was “Internet of Things.” Thus, he is known for coining the term,and he is also known as the fa-ther of “Internet of Things.”
P&G was a sponsor of the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) media lab. The meeting between MIT, P&G and Ashton led P&G to loan him to MIT to set up the Auto-ID center as the executive director to study the radio chips to embed in packaging. At Auto-ID center, he searched for ways to link information on RFID chips to the Internet. With an identifier and wire-less connectivity, every object/thing can communicate with each other over a network or Inter-net. This simple concept became very popular by 2003 with a lot of branches and committees to establish the standards.
Companies invested in IoT technologies and standards helped to streamline the development of better and cheaper IoT devices.
IoT Characteristics
Here are the 6 IoT characteristics:
Processors: Just like computers and smartphones, IoT devices will contain some computing power to provide the intelligence. Consider Nest thermostat which learns your settings by using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning.
Sensors: IoT devices include sensors to sense the activity in the world. Sensors could detect vibration, motion, heart rate, sleep, sound, temperature, humidity, ambient light, tripwire, water leak, ruptured water pipe, garden frost, smoke, carbon monoxide, blind spot, etc.
Connectivity: Internet connectivity can be contained within the device, or it can connect to a hub or base station or smartphone. Finally, the data goes into the cloud. A SmartThings’ door sensor can only connect to SmartThings’s hub to transmit the data.
Energy (efficiency): Computing requires power, and it can be through battery or power. If it is the battery, the device needs to optimize the battery usage by going into idle mode when not utilized. Nest thermostat relies on power connection, and SmartThings’ motion sensor relies on the battery.
Security: IoT devices such as health devices may transmit sensitive data. So security is essen-tial. The same thing applies to smart door locks as well. It’s always a good idea to secure the endpoints, the networks, and the data moving across.
Reliability: Some IoT devices need to operate in extreme conditions and outdoors for an ex-tended period. Nest Cam IQ outdoor can withstand temperatures ranging from –40° to 113°F
(–40° to 45°C).
…To Be Continued
***************************************************************************
Hari Gottipati is a tech evangelist based out of the Valley. Opinions expressed here are solely his own and do not express the views or opinions of his employer. His quotes can often be found in various technology magazines, GigaOM, CNN Money, WSJ, Bloomberg Business Week, etc. Follow him on Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin@harigottipati.