Five things you might not know about IoT
THE INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) – A NETWORK OF DEVICES THAT ARE ALL CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET.
It’s a great way to provide solutions to a number of everyday issues. You may think this applies only to industries or products that are ‘techy’, but that’s not the case at all. IoT or M2M (machine to machine) is currently being used across a wide variety of our industries such as agriculture, security and energy.
HERE ARE OUR TOP FIVE THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT – BUT SHOULD – KNOW ABOUT THE IOT:
There are more devices connected by the internet than there are people in the world: In 2011 the number of devices connected by the internet (12.5billion) exceeded the amount of human beings (7billion)! By 2020 it’s expected that 38.5 billion devices will be connected via the internet.
The IoT can help you to save on energy costs at home and in your business: We can use IoT to collect data and analyse a business’s energy usage. This allows us to see where money is being wasted. The technology can not only tell how energy is being wasted, but also analyses how changes in weather affect energy usage.
Did you know that IoT has been around for over 40 years? IoT was first implemented in 1970’s ATMs (or cash machines). They’re considered to be one of the first examples of the IoT being used in our society. Although you would now look at the technology behind ATMs as fairly simple, they were still connecting devices to the internet.
IoT can be used for automatic alerts: Once your devices are connected to the internet you can set up automatic alerts. You can use these alerts for anything that requires you to manually check the state or condition of something. A good example of automatic alerts is in connected street lights. These smart lights turn off if there’s no traffic on the roads for a period of time to save energy.
What are you waiting for? The IoT is here now: The common perception is that IoT is ‘something for the future’, however this isn’t correct. For many businesses today (including some of your competitors) the IoT is a key part of their operation. They will be using it to help cut costs and maximise productivity.
The IoT is an exciting area which each person (and business) should look to explore. As the IoT grows it will enable many more processes to become data-driven. This will eliminate the possibility of human error, therefore increasing your efficiency and productivity.
