IoT (Internet of Things) is a technology which interconnects various devices through the internet and works as an aggregation of already available technologies.
\nThe Internet has weaved its way in our everyday life by changing the way we work and communicate. Similar to this, IoT levels up the concept of connectivity by inter connecting various devices and enabling human-machine, machine-machine interactions.
\nThis next gen IoT ecosystem has numerous areas of applications such Home Automation, Automotive, Assembly line automation, Retail, Medical\/Preventive healthcare and more.
\nBelow I will briefly explain each component and what it does.<\/p>\n
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1) Sensors\/Devices<\/strong> 2) Connectivity<\/strong> 3) Data Processing<\/strong> 4) User Interface<\/strong> Skipping the Connectivity<\/strong> Why Skip the Connectivity?<\/strong>
\nFirst, sensors or devices collect minute data from their environment. These data collection could have various complexities as in a simple temperature monitoring or a complex full video feed.
\nMultiple sensors can be bundled together to be a part of a device that does more than just sense things. For example, your phone is a device that has multiple sensors (camera, accelerometer, GPS, etc), but your phone is not just a sensor.
\nWhether it is a standalone sensor or a complex device, the first step involves data being collected from the environment.<\/p>\n
\nNext, that data is sent to the cloud but it needs a medium for transport.
\nThe sensors could be connected to the cloud via various mediums of transports including cellular, satellite, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, low-power wide-area networks (LPWAN).
\nEach option has trade-offs between power consumption, range, and bandwidth
\nChoosing the best connectivity would be specific to the IoT application, would all be performing just one important task: getting data to the Cloud.<\/p>\n
\nOnce the data gets to the cloud, the software performs some kind of processing on it.
\nThis could be very simple, such as checking that the temperature reading is within an acceptable range. Or it could also be very complex, such as using computer vision on video to identify objects (such as intruders in your house).
\nBut what happens when the temperature is too high or if there is an intruder in your house? That\u2019s where the user comes in.<\/p>\n
\nNext, the information is made useful to the end-user in some way. This could be via an alert to the user (email, text, notification, etc).
\nAlso, a user might have an interface that allows them to proactively check in on the system. For example, a user might want to check the video feeds in their house via a phone app or a web browser.
\nHowever, it\u2019s not always a one-way street. Depending on the IoT application, the user may also be able to perform an action and affect the system. For instance, after detecting changes in the cold storage unit, the user can remotely adjust the temperature via their phone.
\nAnd some actions are performed automatically. By implementing some predefined rules, the system can adjust the settings automatically. Also in case if intruders are sensed, the system could be set to alert not only you but also relevant authorities.<\/p>\n
\nThe Internet of Things is made up of connected devices, i.e. anything that has the capacity to transfer data over a network. An IoT system also needs some kind of connectivity, to latch itself to the cloud.
\nIn spite of the Cloud, data processing or interaction with the user interface and device could occur without the data being transmitted and received back over an externa network.<\/p>\n
\nOne reason is latency. Latency refers to the transit time of the data from the start point to the end point. Latency doesn\u2019t matter for the majority of the cases, but for some IoT applications latency is critical.<\/strong>
\nImagining a futuristic situation wherein self-driving cars become a norm. While driving one such car, you notice that somebody loses control of their car in front of you. In such a situation you couldn\u2019t wait for the self-driving car to send a warning to the cloud, which processes the data and sends back instructions to the car. Though this might take just seconds, the impact would have been made.
\nIn such cases, we would prefer the user interface (i.e the steering wheel) to be directly linked to the device (i.e the car) rather than the roundabout process.
\nAnother reason is the cost of sending a huge amount of data can be very expensive. Some external IoT applications record a huge amount of data but only a very small fraction of it is actually important. Local algorithms can restrict what gets sent thus lowering costs.
\nA good example of this is a security camera. Streaming video takes a lot of data, but the vast majority of the footage might be of an empty hallway.<\/p>\n