This is how IoT is going to change your everyday life…

The world and everything around us is becoming smart day by day. How good would it be if your own car can sense when you’re about to exit the mall and drive up to you with heated seats and music playing, which if one of your favourites. I’m not joking. This is what BMW is planning for the near future where your car will find its own parking space and your smart watch can control your car. The futuristic-minded early tech folks are primarily focussing on the Internet of Things (IoT).

Those were the gone days where we used a camera with film to take snaps, where people now use Google Glass to snap pictures, Nest to control their home temperature, make use of their smartphone to dim the light bulbs in their bedroom. I’m sure that within a decade, things will look much different and this is what IoT is all about where everyday objects that we interact with on a regular basis, will be capable of talking to each other. A world in which machines will be talking to machines and we humans beings can have a good time to rest.

These are a few interesting examples of how the Internet of Things could change our daily lives:

1. Imagine you woke up in the morning by dismissing your alarm, immediately the alarm send signal to coffee maker saying you are awake and brew some coffee ready. In the meanwhile it also tells your water heater to warm up water.Once you are done with your shower, then the shower will tell the toaster to toast breakfast ready. Similarly you have water sprinkler which check today’s weather to see how much water needs to be sprayed on the lawn.
2. Imagine if your fridge could analyze what is in it, and then build you a shopping list based on your previous food-buying habits. Or even your fridge sends you a message that it runs out of milk and when you’re walking down the supermarket, and you get to the milk fridge. Your shopping trolley vibrates, and the screen mounted on the trolley handles displays a message: “There is no milk in your fridge. Would you like to purchase some?”
3. Smart toothbrushes are another item that already exist, but they are still in their early stages. Currently they can detect when you haven’t properly brushed certain areas of your mouth. However, smart toothbrushes could go one step further. One day, our toothbrushes will be able to detect the healthiness of your teeth, telling the user when it’s time to go to the dentist.
4. What if our plates and bowls could track what we’re eating? This could not only help us with our diets, but could make waves in the health system as a whole. It could help make our health insurance cheaper and could help us live healthier lives.
5. It’s 2025 and you’re stepping out of the office to hail a cab to your important business meeting. Of course, your Google Calendar automatically scanned your Gmail and uploaded an entry for your meeting to your phone. Your phone told your office that you were leaving. By the time you’re at the front door, your self-driving Google Cab has pulled up. You hop in and start to tell it where you want to go. Of course, it already knows.
6. Your coffee saucer is actually a tiny scale. You’re at the cafe, reading Business Insider. You finish your coffee and put down the cup. You get a pop up on your tablet: “Looks like you’ve finished your coffee. Another?” You click yes, and the barista is sent an order.
7. Your bed has an in-built sleep cycle monitor. Your new neighbours decided Thursday night was a great time to have a housewarming and play some obnoxious music until 3am. Your sleep was heavily interrupted. Your bed tells your alarm to give you an extra hour of sleep. Your alarm checks your schedule to see if you have any appointments first thing in the morning. You don’t, so it lets you sleep.

The above mentioned are all applications of connected devices. It is said that, currently there are 9 billion interconnected devices and it is expected to reach 24 billion devices by 2020. The main areas we will see the Internet of Things begin to take hold will be buildings automation, Smart Cities, consumer good & services, healthcare, Environmental Monitoring, Smart Agriculture, industrial & manufacturing, transportation, retail, and security.