The Future of IoT : predictions about Internet of Things

We are living in the Internet era. In everyday life, the Internet has become that part of our life which can be included in the basic needs in addition to the list of food, wardrobe and shelter. In Scandinavian countries, Right to have internet had already been included as a fundamental right. It is almost impossible to separate it. In today's world, if you can read well and accurately understand the ABCD, then you are a logical literate, but not technically. At present, there is a situation that if you are unaware of the Internet and its usage, you cannot call yourself a complete literate one.

Excluding few disadvantages, internet is having bundles of advantages. World is just at a fingertip distance from us! With just a touch, the world is there for you! News, entertainment, information, everything has become too accessible.

The best part of Internet is, it constantly evolves. And as a part of that evolution, a new sensation has taken birth amongst us, that is ‘Internet of things’, also known as IoT widely. Basically what does this term ‘IoT’ mean? In some simple words, “IoT is the connection of all those things which are necessary in everyday life for a human being, with the internet”. In 1999 Kevin Ashton, then at P&G (later MIT’s Auto-ID Center), coined the term ‘Internet of Things’.

Now you will say, ‘what's new in IoT? This is present even now!’ The answer is no, we can firmly say that only 1% had been worked out in the direction of Internet of Things. Why so? Think about how many things around you that are connected to the Internet? One is your mobile phone, another is laptop, may be your television set and in rare case, fourth one could be door in your house! So? The list is over? Surprisingly, IoT is much beyond then this.

Operationally we can define the Internet of Things as the seamless flow between the –

·         BAN (Body Area Network): wearable,

·         LAN (Local Area Network): smart home,

·         WAN (Wide Area Network): connected car, and

·         VWAN (Very Wide Area Network): the smart city.

IoT basically works for making our life simple and easy. How? Let’s get in touch with some future applications of IoT on sectorial bases:

Internet of Things in home automation:

Think that the terrible summers is running outside and you are annoyed by unbearable heat while shopping in the market. You need your own room to be cool while reaching home. What will you do? Well, if your home's AC is connected to your mobile, then you will be able to switch on the AC while shopping in the market.

Image Source :  Medium

Not only this much, but also you can set the temperature you want and your room will be ready to cool you down when you return home. This is the most basic application of IoT in the field of home automation. It can perform much ahead of it. Starting from signalling of the unnecessarily running electronic devices to securitise your house even while you are in a deep sleep.

Internet of Things in Healthcare industry:

Here in this sector, the real time data plays a crucial role. IoT collects and transmit the data like ECGs, blood sugar level, weight, etc. to the cloud based system and doctor, no matter how far away, get in touch with real time data in just no time. It will take the healthcare to the next level. Also, the medical emergencies in remote areas can be tackled in an efficient way using IoT. IoT will let the doctors to do monitoring and diagnosing/operating both at the same time without delay due to the real time report.

Image Source :  IoTNewsPortal

IoT can be a boon for emergencies such as road accidents. Suppose, you are driving your car and suddenly you meet with an accident. Your condition is serious and you are not able to call anyone. IoT will help you in such situation. The car accident will be immediately informed in the nearby police station and hospital through the sensors placed in your car. In the hospital and police station, the police and the ambulance will immediately come to the spot after getting the message on receiver sensors showing your exact location. All this will happen without doing anything by yourself! This is the magic of IoT.

Internet of Things in agriculture:

Agriculture sector will be getting much from IoT. Nowadays, climate is changing in a faster way. In these changing conditions, an accurate forecasting system will help the farmers for the selection of crop. IoT, in its own swag, can do this efficiently for them. Based on comparison of past and future data, by sensing the relative humidity in local atmosphere IoT will guide the local farmers for their crop selection process.

Image Source :  Medium

Also it will help them for soil betterment. Sometimes standing crop is attacked by bugs. In this condition, IoT with the help of drones, will let them know about exact highly influenced area and thus, pesticides can be sprinkled in that area only. This will reduce the overall cost of agriculture as well as assure better production as well.

Internet of things case study dealing with parking issues in metro cities:

As we all know, there in metro-cities, parking is becoming a huge problem due to drastic increment of the vehicles. This issue can be eliminated with the help of IoT.

We all are aware of all these apps and websites for booking movie shows, theatre plays, cricket match, exhibitions, etc. Just in the same way, IoT can help us here to curb this issue.

An app named ‘Get my parking’, developed by engineers from New Delhi, India is there for the same. It is basically working on digitisation of parking lots present in the city. What is done is that, they measure the area of the parking lot and divide it according to the type of vehicles to be parked there (i.e. two wheelers, three wheelers, four wheelers of multi axle vehicles).

After that, they make visuals available on the app as a digitised picture of the parking lot. The divided Parking spaces are shown on the app just like seats in the multiplex! We can book our space with the help of that real time data. To users, the app provides information on the nearby location of the parking lots, availability of parking spots, ticket pricing so as to avoid overcharges. Which helps to curb parking mafias. After successfully digitalising approx. 67 parking lots in Delhi, they have opened their new office at Bangalore for exploring new opportunities in south India.  

IoT case study of Canada’s Ontario:

Cisco is a company that took project to turn Ontario's city into a Smart City. The company made Ontario very smart by using IoT that all public items from public transport were covered here. At noon, at what time the bus is up, at what stop will your stops come, all the information you get on your phone, and the complaints like time-waste will be eradicated.

Smart dustbins are also a part of IoT. In which, a signal with location will be sent to the Municipal solid waste handling company automatically when the dustbin will be full of waste material. How smart!

Having clarity on what IoT can do, it’s time to explore its scopes in upcoming years.

Internet of things’ scopes in 2019-2020:

• IoT will move towards industrial usage from consumer usage in upcoming years
• IoT, in upcoming years, provide solutions for disaster management prudently
• Blockchain technology is a child of IoT which is almost going to eliminate cyber threats
• Preventive maintenance and other ‘taken for granted’ things in the industrial sector will be converted into actions due to this IoT watchdog
• IoT will help all sectors of economy to take calculated risks, which will boost the entrepreneurship in the market
• IoT will create a unified framework for digital integration of the world
• Big data analysis will become much faster and safer with the help of IoT

Advancements in the field of Internet of things is going to be game changer for the rapidly developing countries like India. Evolution of IoT will become a helping hand for such countries. On that note, let’s take a bird-eye view of the major impacts of IoT on India.

Scope of IoT in India:

• ‘Digital India’ mission will get a huge upward thrust due to IoT. As we have seen earlier, use of IoT in agriculture in India can give best result
• ‘Smart cities’ initiative by Indian government is also a vast field for the implications of IoT. Ranging from smart houses to smart roads can make Indian cities digitally sound
• Banking frauds have adversely affected Indian economy. Blockchain technology will be a boon for curbing such frauds
• India is facing the issue of lack of data. But with the help of IoT, big data analysis is possible, which will make the policy making strategy very much accurate and targeted
• India has ranked as 3rd most vulnerable country for cyber-attacks as per the report of cyber security giant Symantec. IoT will help to eliminate this vulnerability by providing a robust cyber structure to India

IoT is having pretty much amount of advantages. But at the same time we should also not neglect the security of IoT itself. As we will become increasingly dependent on smart technology and the internet of things, IoT security is a very hot topic.

Future of IoT security:

As there’s said in IT industry that a Hack-proof system is a myth, security of IoT itself becomes an important issue.

But, we should note that while this IoT is going towards its peak, there are also happening bigger advancements in digital security as well.

AI can be a big player here in this field. Moreover, new self-defence mechanisms will securitise IoT as well. We should remember that shifting from old to the newer ones is only a matter of advanced and updated systems. All these connected devices will make IoT robust.

Also, confirming some standard communication protocols will help in betterment of IoT security.

Internet of things is having plenty of business opportunities. New horizons of business are possible just because of IoT. For that, we have to dive into some statistics related to Internet of things.

IoT statistics 2019 onwards:

• It is predicted by Gartner that there will be almost 20.4 billion IoT devices in the market till 2020. Which will boost the manufacturing sector.
• Almost 90% of automobiles will be connected to the internet by 2020
• Various companies will invest almost 10-15 trillion USD in the field of IoT  between 2019-2025
• According to former Cisco researcher Mr David Evans’ study, 127 devices are being connected to the internet every second!
• IoT industry is predicted to sump around 14 trillion USD in world economy till 2030
• The wearable devices market is growing at an exponential rate. In 2016, 28.3 million units of IoT devices made it to the market. According to IDC forecasts, this number will rise to 82.5 million by 2020, showcasing a 31% growth.

IoT is an emerging sector of the technology. Future of IoT is bright. We have seen all aspects related to IoT as mentioned above. At last, we will take a rapid view on the future of IoT.

Future of IoT:

• IoT will be accelerated by Artificial Intelligence (for example Google’s project of AI operated car)
• Complex solutions will be made easier by using IoT (such as Web-RTC (Web real time communication)
• Edge computing will get momentum due to IoT (as an option of cloud computing)
• 5G era will boost IoT even further touching every human’s life
• Advancements in the Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) technology offer even more functionality for IoT devices.