You may not have heard the word “IoT,” but you may still be using it. If you use any smart appliances then you are already making use of IoT technology. In this article, we aim to explain its fundamentals and their primary application in the industry.
what is IoT?
IoT stands for Internet of Things. Let’s first look at an example. Suppose you bought a smart appliance let’s say a washing machine. This device is capable of connecting to your home wifi and sending you real-time data on your phone. It can send data about the time remaining for clothes to wash or if there is an error etc. Here there are two physical smart devices both of them having the ability to connect with the internet. Your washing machine has sensors embedded to detect the changes while your phone has the software to process that data. This small network through which smart physical devices combined with software or sensors can communicate with each other without the involvement of humans is called the Internet of Things.
In this example, we simply mentioned a network between your washing machine and your phone. It could be even bigger and more versatile. Your car, appliances, security cameras, or even a heart monitoring system implanted within a human.
How IoT works?
In the simplest form, IoT consists of devices or sensors which can talk to a cloud through connectivity. Here devices or sensors are your smart appliances. While the cloud refers to a main data server where all the information is processed. And the connectivity is the internet. There might be a user interface system if required. This will allow you the user to give commands or check the system from his end.
Consider that your home internet is connected to your smoke sensor, security camera, and window sensor. They are transferring data to a cloud storage system, where it is processed before being provided to your cellphone. Your smartphone serves as the interface. You may look up the information or even issue orders, like setting off an alarm or locking a door. This is how the system as a whole functions and communicates.
Industrial IoT
Industrial IoT, often known as IIoT, is the name given to IoT technology that is used in the industrial setting. This is particularly valid when it comes to instrumenting and managing sensors and other cloud-based technology. Wireless automation and control are now possible thanks to machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity. However, as cloud computing technology becomes more widely used, businesses may potentially reach a new degree of automation, enabling the creation of new revenue streams and business models. This fourth industrial revolution of often regarded as IoT 4.0 or industry 4.0.
Importance of IOT
- Efficiency: IoT sensors, for instance, can be used to track the operation of equipment and identify or even fix possible problems before they result in downtime. This can help the business to reduce its maintenance and operation costs.
- Decision-making: IoT is capable to gather enormous amounts of data and compute them. They can give some valuable insights such as market trends performance and resource allocation.
- Improve customer experience: IOT is capable to compute cluster behavior. This data can be used to give the customer a personalized experience. For example, an e-commerce website can track your purchasing and accordingly give you offers.
- Healthcare: When it comes to its hospitals, it is extremely important to keep track of support equipment for the patient. IoT sensors can be attached say for example to wheelchairs, oxygen cylinders etc. This can help the medical stall locate this equipment as well as check the availability of them. This can increase the efficiency of the hospital operation and reduce the cost.
What we wrote in this article is simply the basic ad fundamental of IOT. It is a developing technology and holds the potential to revolutionize the way we live and carry out our day-to-day life.