What exactly is this Internet of Things (IoT) that I keep hearing about?
Technology is full of buzzwords and acronyms. Some companies even provide acronym dictionaries to new hires in order to explain all the buzzwords they use. Internet of Things, or IoT, is one of those popular buzzwords. With all the popularity, I still have people ask me all the time “What is IoT?”.
In simple terms, I think of IoT the following way. My father’s first car was a Model T. With him as the mechanic it was a very reliable car, but he certainly did not have to tinker with any software or technology embedded in it to make it run. If you go to a dealership today, almost any vehicle you look at has software running inside of it. The Tesla S has roughly 30M lines of code running in it, which is more than is running on the average work laptop. With modern cars functioning as wireless hotspots and with features such as backup and collision sensors, embedded technologies have even become the key selling features, arguably more important than classic features such as the color of the vehicle or the option of leather seats. We have come a long way since my Dad’s Model T. This concept of embedding technology in a classically physical device to make the device "smart" is the basic idea behind IoT.
The fact that your car is now “smart” because it has all of this technology running inside of it allows it to “speak”. The cars voice is the data that is collected around how well the car is running and what features you actually use and which you don’t actually care about. When the manufacturer (e.g. Ford or BMW) collects all of the data from all of their cars on the road, they are able to have a much better understanding of how people actually drive their cars. This visibility into the device enables them to do things such as improve the designs to enhance the driver experience or increase reliability based on real driver preferences. This concept of aggregating the data from multiple cars is the concept of “Big Data” and is another key aspect of IoT.
However, having visibility into a huge amount of previously unknown data is only part of the equation. It’s the analytics that drive the rest of the value. When Tesla looks at the data that flowed off of all of the Model S vehicles on the road they suddenly can predict failures. So, for example, instead of owners simply getting an oil change every 10,000 miles regardless of need, the car itself can now proactively alert the driver and tell them definitively when to get an oil change. This concept of looking at a large number of IoT enabled cars and running analytics on them, is "IoT analytics". With IoT our devices can talk, and with IoT analytics we can listen and take action.
My father was a magician with a wrench and I’ll never be remotely close to as good a mechanic as he was. However, by writing software, I may be able to have a greater impact on today’s devices than the wrench wizard could have had. IoT is a trend that is taking over the world. Imagine if the devices you use on a daily basis could talk to you, what would they say?
Retired
7yI am hoping that IoT definition turns into "Internet of Trust."
Happily Idle
7yDon, reading this reminded me of this Seamus Heaney poem about what he does compared to his father. Nice job Digging, Seamus Heaney Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun. Under my window, a clean rasping sound When the spade sinks into gravelly ground: My father, digging. I look down Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds Bends low, comes up twenty years away Stooping in rhythm through potato drills Where he was digging. The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft Against the inside knee was levered firmly. He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep To scatter new potatoes that we picked, Loving their cool hardness in our hands. By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man. My grandfather cut more turf in a day Than any other man on Toner’s bog. Once I carried him milk in a bottle Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up To drink it, then fell to right away Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods Over his shoulder, going down and down For the good turf. Digging. The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge Through living roots awaken in my head. But I’ve no spade to follow men like them. Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.
Vice President / Wealth Management, Financial Advisor
7yGreat insight into what's coming "down the Pike".. Can C-3PO be far behind?
EasyIOT Solutions LLC
8yHi Don, Good article. In some sense IOT has been with us all along. It's just that now the hardware (i.e., various sensors, controllers, etc.) and software (Big Data Analytics, Cloud based usage models) are a lot more affordable. Across the spectrum from consumer electronic controllers that can monitor your lawn and water it automatically or turn your lights on/off to smarter operations in industrial complexes with geographically dispersed sensor networks, data collection and analytics, things have definitely become easier, cheaper and implementable! I also believe that besides hardware and software becoming cheaper, the availability of Raspberry Pi like micro computers/controllers and millions of hobbyists sharing software that runs on them is also accelerating the spread of IOT.
Head of Marketing Operations
8yI love how you related the Model T and Tesla with your personal experiences. A great read.