Demystify Internet of Things (IoT)

What is Internet of Things (IoT)

Traditionally IoT is termed as an ability to send and collect data from objects over a wireless network without Human intervention. ?The chances are that each one of you is already using or being influenced by it.

1.????? Health – Wearables or ingestible monitors and maintain health & wellness.

2.????? Home - Devices like voice assistants, automated vacuum cleaners, or security systems

3.????? Frictionless Retail - Arenas to facilitate self-checkout or help optimize inventory

4.????? Offices - Energy management or security for buildings using sensors

5.????? Standardized production environments - Manufacturing plants, hospitals, or farms.

6.????? Vehicles - Condition-based maintenance, usage-based design, or driverless

7.????? Cities - Smart meters, environmental monitoring, or managing resources.

8.????? Outdoor - Railroad tracks, autonomous vehicles, or flight navigation

9.????? Restaurants - Refrigerators & cooking devices, to help their food-compliance processes.

IoT has emerged as one of most significant trends in digital transformation which is reaching consumers and business faster than we thought. It is equally benefitting business and consumers. Operation optimization today accounts for ~ 40% of the IoT use cases. Health and Human productivity use cases are another 30%.

How has IoT evolved in the last few years.

1.????? Development in cloud computing, edge computing, 5G connectivity & AI meant that all technologies can be loosely coupled to exponentially increase the value. This has led to IoT Platforms.

2.????? Industry is far more advanced with Robotics, Automated arms, Sophisticated sensor technologies resulting into enhanced productivity. IoT has now evolved into IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things).

3.????? With superior connectivity and computing, our ability to process and make meaning out of the data has increased manyfold.

4.????? Our desire to make employee life better and focus on sustainability to means that intent to use IoT at scale has increased many folds.

Some Practical Guidance for implementing IoT

IoT will keep evolving and touching business and consumers much faster hence it is important for the organizations to strategize their plan. Some practical guidance from my experience.

1.????? Design for scale right from beginning but build progressively instead of one-off effort. Decide on IoT Organization design (Not just project design or IT organization). More often organizations are stuck at sensors and are not able to reach the end goal of AI as both the team and technology design was not meant for it.

2.????? Do not just solve IoT problems with money. Think about solving problems and not just building software. It’s creativity and pushing for simplicity that leads to the solution.

3.????? Invest in smart, ready to learn and agile technical talent. There is no such thing as "IoT Engineer" as IoT is a marriage of so many technologies. Also, don’t expect you can build it all by yourself. Take help from partners, industry consortiums and your peers.

4.????? IoT is not just having many technologies but also many players and suppliers. Also till now we lack any industry standards in this area. So push for interoperability.

5.????? More technologies, more data means more vulnerability. So do not close eyes and think that we will build security later. Security must be on every layer, every step.