Since its inception in 1999 IoT has gone from an idea to an industry approaching a trillion US dollars, simply due to its firm assertion in our daily lives and the objects we use and see around us.
What exactly made the Internet of Things what it is today? This and many more questions together with its influence in the modern world are what we’ll be looking to address in this article.
What is IoT?
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a network of internet-connected objects or things that have software, detectors, and other technological sensors built in to connect and exchange data from other systems and devices without human intervention.
Data is received and sent out from different sources to these products with the cloud playing a significant role in the whole IoT environment. To put it plainly, once an object has an identifier, an IP address, and an internet connection it is an IoT-enabled solution.
IoT also connects services, animals, and people to the internet. It is not limited to physical objects like sophisticated industrial tools or ordinary household items.
The Internet of Things is the internet-able nature of modern physical devices, vehicles, and buildings. IoT products are also referred to as connected devices or smart devices.
IoT’s Meteoric Rise
The devices being connected have been around since the 70s and it was often called “pervasive computing” or “embedded internet” in the 70s and 80s. It wasn’t until 1999 that Kevin Ashton coined the term “Internet of Things” during his work at Procter & Gamble.
Even then, its popularity didn’t progress till 2010/2011 and finally attained mass-market awareness when Google announced it would buy Nest for $3.2 billion in January 2014. Coincidentally, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014 featuring over 152,000 participants, 3,200 exhibitors from more than 150 countries was held in Las Vegas under the theme of IoT in the same year.
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic the market for IoT grew in 2020 whilst the global GDP declined by 5%. Today, there are over 20 billion active connected devices worldwide, and the number is expected to exceed 30 billion by 2025. It is expected that by 2025 there would be almost 4 IoT devices per person across the planet, which paints an optimistic picture for IoT technology going into the future.
The Benefits Of IoT
Data Collection
IoT can help businesses and other organisations improve their products and services by using advanced analytics on collected data to provide important insights into consumer behaviour and predict future trends. How customers request a service and the supplier’s typical response can be monitored. Leveraging this type of information could increase revenue, reduce operational costs, and create new growth opportunities.
For example, delivery services can calculate which delivery area has the highest traffic (and at which times) with the use of GPS tracking devices. This can help when allocating resource to different areas during the course of the working day. Different types of data can be used build targeted marketing campaigns, sales drives, or identify new business opportunities.
Increase Customer Dialog
IoT provides opportunities to strengthen the degree of interaction and communication with customers. Smartphone based transactions, shipment tracking, and utility bills can help retain customers’ trust and improve the overall experience. Real-time data analytics can also be used to create Frequently Asked Questions to reduce time spent while making purchases or providing customer service.
Improve Monitoring
Smart devices and sensors allow a network of physical objects to be managed. When data is monitored across the numerous layers of infrastructure and various networks used by an organisation, historical data can be fused with new data to create a predictive model for the future. Plans for contingency, redundancy, and failover can also be implemented.
For instance, tracking the vibration or temperature of machine details makes the early detection of a failure possible. Devices connected by the Internet of Things help to communicate this type of data and intervention can been taken quickly avoiding long-term consequences.
Efficiency And Productivity
In a study by Aruba, it was found that 46% of businesses that made use of IoT techniques experienced an increase in efficiency despite only 29% of them expected the gains.
The basis for improved productivity is efficiency. One major way to influence a company’s efficiency is to leverage the power of IoT to cut down on time-consuming and repetitive tasks. IoT can help provide an overview of employee productivity in the work environment, which in turn can be used to promote a more productive approach and to streamline the workflow.
5G And Its Impact On The Internet of Things
5G offers transmission speeds as high as 15 to 20 Gbps. Compared to 4G that offers 12 to 36 for download and 7 Mbps to 17 Mbps for upload, it is the next-generation mobile network. The number of devices that can be connected increases greatly with latency reducing to ten times less. This allows more devices to deliver more data quicker, resulting in more accurate analysis and an almost real-time experience. 5G will be a game changer for IoT.
Increase In The Number Of Connected Devices
This is the most significant of all 5G impacts on IoT. Devices will be connected faster in every area of technology.
Sensors will be deployed in buildings and smart cities as the number of connected devices increase. 5G will allow areas to be saturated with small sensors which will allow uses like turning on street lighting when pedestrian movement is detected.
Bluetooth technology is already being used for tracking. However, 5G will allow a lot more data to be transmitted easily with IoT so that equipment, vehicles, and people will be tracked more efficiently.
Problems Of IoT
In as much as IoT presents a lot of wonderful opportunities for interaction without the environment, there’s also the possibility of these “things” interacting with the Internet without our permission. This can pose serious privacy and security issues.
IoT still has a lot of security challenges to overcome to be close to being safe. However even though the technology hasn’t reached that stage, it promises to get there.
The following are areas in which IoT can improve on;
- User knowledge and awareness
- Compliance on the part of IoT manufacturers
- Data transfer and storage
- Industrial Espionage and Eavesdropping
- Physical hardening
- Protection from botnet attacks
Conclusion
The Internet of things promises to improve every aspect of life from households to businesses with internet-enabled devices. The advent of 5G technology raises the possibilities to another level (which in turn comes with its own baggage in terms of privacy and security issues). IoT is here to stay and the only solution is to find ways to make it safer for everyday use.