The internet of things, or IoT, is a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers (UIDs) and has the ability to transfer data over a network while not requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Connecting up all these completely different objects and adding sensors to them adds level of digital intelligence to devices that will be otherwise dumb, enabling them to communicate real-time data without involving a human being. The internet of Things is creating the fabric of the world around us a lot smarter and responsive, merging the digital and physical universes.
How does IoT work?
An IoT ecosystem consists of web-enabled sensible devices that use embedded systems, like processors, sensors 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 alternative edge device wherever data is either sent to the cloud to be analyzed or analyzed domestically. Sometimes, these devices communicate with alternative connected devices and act on the information they get from each other. The devices do most of the work while not human intervention, though individuals can interact with the devices — as an example, to line them up, offer them directions or access the info.
Why is IoT important?
The internet of things helps people live and work smarter, as well as gain complete control over their lives. In addition to offering smart devices to automate homes, IoT is essential to business. IoT provides businesses with a real-time look into how their systems really work, delivering insights into everything from the performance of machines to supply chain and logistics operations.
IoT enables companies to automate processes and reduce labor costs. It also cuts down on waste and improves service delivery, making it less expensive to manufacture and deliver goods, as well as offering transparency into customer transactions.
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.
What are the benefits of IoT to organizations?
The internet of things offers several benefits to organizations. Some benefits are industry-specific, and some are applicable across multiple industries. Some of the common benefits of IoT enable businesses to:
- monitor their overall business processes;
- improve the customer experience (CX);
- save time and money;
- enhance employee productivity;
- integrate and adapt business models;
- make better business decisions; and
- generate more revenue.
IoT encourages corporations to rethink the ways they approach their businesses and provides them the tools to boost their business ways.
Generally, IoT is most abundant in manufacturing, transportation and utility organizations, making use of sensors and other IoT devices; however, it has also found use cases for organizations within the agriculture, infrastructure and home automation industries, leading some organizations toward digital transformation.
IoT can profit farmers in agriculture by making their job easier. Sensors can collect information on precipitation, humidity, temperature and soil content, also as different factors, that may facilitate modification of farming techniques.
The ability to observe operations encompassing infrastructure is additionally an element that IoT can help with. Sensors, for example, could be used to monitor events or changes within structural buildings, bridges and different infrastructure. This brings advantages with it, like price saving, saved time, quality-of-life workflow changes and paperless advancement.
A home automation business will utilize IoT to observe and manipulate mechanical and electrical systems in a building. On a broader scale, smart cities can facilitate citizens to reduce waste and energy consumption.
IoT touches each trade, as well as businesses within healthcare, finance, retail and manufacturing.
Pros and cons of IoT
Some of the advantages of IoT include the following:
- ability to access information from anywhere at any time on any device;
- improved communication between connected electronic devices;
- transferring data packets over a connected network saving time and money; and
- automating tasks helping to improve the quality of a business’s services and reducing the need for human intervention
Some disadvantages of IoT include the following:
- As the number of connected devices increases and more information is shared between devices, the potential that a hacker could steal confidential information also increases.
- Enterprises may eventually have to deal with massive numbers — maybe even millions — of IoT devices, and collecting and managing the data from all those devices will be challenging.
- If there’s a bug in the system, it’s likely that every connected device will become corrupted.
- Since there’s no international standard of compatibility for IoT, it’s difficult for devices from different manufacturers to communicate with each other.
IoT standards and frameworks
There are several emerging IoT standards, including the following:
- IPv6 over Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) is an open standard defined by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The 6LoWPAN standard enables any low-power radio to communicate to the internet, including 804.15.4, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and Z-Wave (for home automation).
- ZigBee is a low-power, low-data rate wireless network used mainly in industrial settings. ZigBee is based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.15.4 standard. The ZigBee Alliance created Dotdot, the universal language for IoT that enables smart objects to work securely on any network and understand each other.
- LiteOS is a Unix-like operating system (OS) for wireless sensor networks. LiteOS supports smartphones, wearables, intelligent manufacturing applications, smart homes and the internet of vehicles (IoV). The OS also serves as a smart device development platform.
- OneM2M is a machine-to-machine service layer that can be embedded in software and hardware to connect devices. The global standardization body, OneM2M, was created to develop reusable standards to enable IoT applications across different verticals to communicate.
- Data Distribution Service (DDS) was developed by the Object Management Group (OMG) and is an IoT standard for real-time, scalable and high-performance M2M communication.
- Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is an open source published standard for asynchronous messaging by wire. AMQP enables encrypted and interoperable messaging between organizations and applications. The protocol is used in client-server messaging and in IoT device management.
- Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a protocol designed by the IETF that specifies how low-power, compute-constrained devices can operate in the internet of things.
- Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) is a protocol for WANs designed to support huge networks, such as smart cities, with millions of low-power devices.
IoT frameworks include the following:
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT is a cloud computing platform for IoT released by Amazon. This framework is designed to enable smart devices to easily connect and securely interact with the AWS cloud and other connected devices.
- Arm Mbed IoT is a platform to develop apps for IoT based on Arm microcontrollers. The goal of the Arm Mbed IoT platform is to provide a scalable, connected and secure environment for IoT devices by integrating Mbed tools and services.
- Microsoft’s Azure IoT Suite is a platform that consists of a set of services that enables users to interact with and receive data from their IoT devices, as well as perform various operations over data, such as multidimensional analysis, transformation and aggregation, and visualize those operations in a way that’s suitable for business.
- Google’s Brillo/Weave is a platform for the rapid implementation of IoT applications. The platform consists of two main backbones: Brillo, an Android-based OS for the development of embedded low-power devices, and Weave, an IoT-oriented communication protocol that serves as the communication language between the device and the cloud.
- Calvin is an open source IoT platform released by Ericsson designed for building and managing distributed applications that enable devices to talk to each other. Calvin includes a development framework for application developers, as well as a runtime environment for handling the running application.
