What is the Internet of Things and how does it work?

Have you ever wondered how your smartphones and gadgets do your work automatically? The alarm goes off and the microwave stops heating your food just at the right time. Our phone responds when you input a voice command and it also tells you who has called by sounding a voice alert. Your card drives you automatically to your destination, that too via the fastest route. Enterprise Servers have also been equipped with astonishing features. How is this possible? A few years back, this was only seen in sci-fi Hollywood films. But now all of this is slowly happening in real life too. It has been estimated that there will be as much development in Artificial Intelligence in the next 10 years as there had been from the year 1900 to 2000. What is the factor which makes all of this? What is it that swings such devices into action? Well, the answer is the Internet of Things (IoT). Read on to explore what this is and how it all works out in the practical world.

What is the Internet of Things?

To say in brief, the Internet of Things is the concept of connecting any device to the Internet and to other synced devices. The IoT is a very big network of connected appliances – all of which collect, transfer, and share data about the manner in which they are used and about the environment around these appliances when they are used.

These appliances include an unimaginable number of devices of all shapes and sizes – from smart microwaves, which automatically heat and cook your food for the exact amount of time, to automatic cars, whose advanced sensors detect any obstructions in their path, to fitness devices that keep track of your calories and the number of steps and distance that you’ve travelled that day, which are in turn used to design custom fitness plans for you.

How does the Internet of Things actually work?

All these devices have sensors installed inside them and the sensors gather data about you and integrate it with the data of various other devices and analyses it before following a command and swinging into action. This is best used in applications which have been developed to cater to specific requirements. This technology forms patterns and in a way predicts what task you will do or must do at what time. On this basis, the device gives us recommendations on how to carry on our work and also tells us what time would be the best to start it.

Taking an example, if I run an electronics business, I can use the Internet of Things to a good effect. I can install sensors in my showroom to determine the department where the customers spend the most of time. I can also use it compute which of my products have the highest demand and the IoT will, in turn, tell me how many units of a particular device should be manufactured so that there is no shortage of supply. Thus, by employing the IoT, my precious man hours would reduce significantly and it would reap rich dividends,

So basically, IoT captures all the activities which you perform repeatedly. It then forms a trend line and predicts the general trend of any event. It uses these trends to predict the probability of various events and functions accordingly.

Every device or appliance which we have been using for years normally is slated to receive a makeover by the induction of IoT. Efforts are on to connect all your devices on a common ground so that you receive the best-customized service at a low cost. Just imagine how easy life would be if your electronics take care of all your schedules. This would essentially speed up our daily activities and ensure that we are efficient in our planning, just because our computer is doing it for us!

Some examples of IoT applications:

We shall now look at some of the real world examples of the applications of the Internet Things. Over the years, the application of IoT has increased exponentially.

While it will continue to capture all kinds of devices. The devices and places where it has already made its way are:-

Smart homes
Connected Cars

Smart cities

IoT in agriculture
Smart Shopping

Future of Internet of Things:

According to a survey by HP, in 1990 0.3 million devices were connected by IoT and in 2025, 1.0 trillion devices will be connected by IoT. This is a whopping number and it shows how rapidly IoT is going to make inroads into the digital world. Concepts such as the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence are due to take over the technology markets and they will definitely change the way people look at technology forever.

Thus, Internet of Things, touted as a breakthrough invention, has truly exceeded all the parameters set by its predecessors and promises to further make all of us tech-savvy