IoT – An Introduction

Have you heard about the term Internet of Things or ‘IoT’ before? If not, that is alright. A lot of us have no idea about the technology we are surrounded by because we have not been introduced to it formally. Let me make it easier for you. Basically, IoT stands for the Internet of Things. As the name suggests, it is the technology where each and everything/device in your homes, offices, workplaces, hospitals have an internet connection on it. You must be wondering how that works. Now, let us take an example to simplify it. Consider you turned the air conditioner ON and all of a sudden, you have to leave for somewhere and forgot to turn the AC OFF. Later, when realised, there is nothing you can do until you get back to turn it OFF yourself physically. This is where technology devised by IoT comes in, with IoT smart devices you can have an internet connection to the AC and a mobile app is installed on your smartphone to handle it remotely i.e., even if you forgot to turn it OFF, it is not a problem anymore. Similarly, all other devices and appliances can be managed remotely without the need to physically control it.

IoT has drastically changed the lifestyles let it refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, or hospital smart beds, insulin injections, bp tracking devices, and a lot more. IoT is making our lives as they call it ‘smart’ and we pretty much are getting used to it. IoT brings us:

·         Smart Homes

·         Smart Cities

·         Smart Agriculture

·         Smart Hospitals

·         Smart Buildings

Fig1: Internet-connected devices

IoT devices have pretty much taken over the regular devices. These devices include:

Smart Sockets/ Smart Plugs: When used, these plugs efficiently save electricity, set an alarm when the heat is accumulated and automatically turns the device OFF if not in use within a customised certain time.

Smart Lock: Smart Lock ensures the safety of its user and can be managed from anywhere.

Kuri mobile Robot: Kuri is a home robot that helps the user with everyday tasks, records the activities, entertains the user. It has sensor technology that manages and detects any unusual behaviour.

Google Home voice control, Doorbell cam, Smoke alarms, insulin injections, smart beds are a few more examples of IoT-enabled devices.

World-known companies like Cisco, IBM, ScienceSoft, Microsoft, Google has also adapted IoT to keep up with the technology trends. This facility developed by humans for humans is a great gateway to an easier life and removing interdependency between humans and devices.

U.S. Air Force has also acquired a device called SignalFrame which turns mobile phones of civilians into a listening device so that they can sniff the traffic of strange criminal involved activities.

IoT is providing countless benefits such as ease of control, removing interdependency between machine and human, saving power for future survival, time-saving, better lifestyle, and a lot more. Along with these amazing benefits, it may be inflicting some drawbacks such as security breaches since the internet connection is a potential to hacker attacks. Also, with automated house help and other domains, IoT is reducing jobs, hence causing unemployment. Too much dependency on machines and the internet may be harmful in the future.

To conclude, it is always good to try out new things, however, excess dependency on it may have long-term effects. So, choose wisely and sanely.