IoT - Internet of Things Explained | What is IoT? | Future of IoT - Internet of Things

Internet of Things is making lives so much easier. Almost all appliances can be now monitored remotely and perhaps even run.

Imagine you're at work and realize that you might not have turned off the air conditioner while leaving your house. Instead of traveling all the way back home.

What if you could use your smartphone to know the status of your ac and perhaps even turn it off. Wouldn't that be amazing well, yes and this can be achieved with the help of the Internet of Things.

Until recently access to the internet was limited via devices like the desktop, tablet, or smartphone but now with the Internet of Things (IoT), practically all appliances can be connected to the internet and monitored remotely.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is shaping the way we live our lives it helps us get a better insight into the working of things around us. 

So what exactly is the internet of things IoT?

 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a system of interrelated devices connected to the internet to transfer and receive data from one to the other. A smart home is the best example of IoT home appliances like the ac, doorbell, thermostats, smoke detectors, water heaters, and security alarms that can be interconnected to share data with the user over a mobile application.

The user can now get detailed insight into the working of the devices around him. Think about it until recently the internet helped people connect and interact with each other but now inanimate objects or things have the ability to sense the surroundings to interact and collaborate with one another.

For example in the morning when your alarm goes off the IoT system can open the window blinds, turn on the coffee pot for you and even turn on the water heater although all of this is fascinating there's a lot that goes on in the background to ensure seamless functioning from effective communication between devices to accurate processing of the data received a lot of components are involved.

In the context of the Internet of Things (IoT) devices hardware can be classified into GENERAL DEVICES and SENSING DEVICES

The General devices are the main components of the data hub and information exchange they are connected either by wired or wireless interfaces. Home appliances are a classic example of such devices

The Sensing devices on the other hand include sensors and actuators that measure the temperature, humidity, light intensity, and other parameters. 

These IoT devices are connected to the network with the help of gateways. These gateways or processing nodes process the information collected from the sensors and transfer it to the cloud.

The cloud acts as both the storage and processing unit actions are performed on the collected data for further learning and inferences. Wired and wireless interfaces like wi-fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, gsms, and so on are used to provide connectivity to ensure its ubiquity applications need to support a diverse set of devices and communication protocols from tiny sensors capable of sensing and reporting the desired factor to powerful back-end servers that are utilized for data analysis and knowledge extraction.

To help you understand it's working let's take a simple scenario to let's suppose you want to water your garden every time the moisture level in the soil drops instead of doing it manually you could automate it using The Internet of Things (IoT).

The sensors and actuators installed to gauge the soil for its moisture this information is sent to the IoT gateway with the help of communication protocols like MQTT or HTTP the gateway significantly aggregates data and feeds it to the cloud with the help of wi-fi, Land area Network (LAN).

Once the moisture level drops the system is immediately triggered and the sprinklers are turned on however with the information stored in the cloud. A detailed analysis like the time of the day the sprinkler was turned on the rate at which the moisture in the soil reduces and so on can be done and the report could be sent over to you on your smartphone over an app.

With the improved response monitoring and analytical capabilities, The Internet of Things (IoT) is being adopted in almost all industries and domains opening doors to endless applications.

Today The Internet of Things (IoT) is being used extensively to lessen the burden on humans. To name a few IoT is deployed for smart homes, wearables, watches and bracelets, smart cars, smart farming, smart retail, smart grids, smart city, and smart healthcare with such a wide spectrum of applications the future of IT looks more promising than ever before.

In 2018 there were about 23 billion connected devices which were more than double the world population according to experts there will be over 80 billion devices by 2025. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a vision to connect all devices with the power of the internet always learning and always growing.

Now that you have a picture of what The Internet of Things (IoT) is?

Here's a simple question for you - Which of the following technologies is not used as an interface for a network 

1. wi-fi  
2. ethernet 
3. Zigbee 
4. VPN 

Gives it a thought and leave your answers in the comments section below