What IoT Means | Your Ultimate Guide To IoT

Internet Of Things is the hottest thing in the market but what IoT means anyway? Yes they are interconnected devices but not all of them are IoT like for example your Smartphone and Laptop are NOT IoT devices as they need human interaction, however, your Door Security system is an IoT device, By the end of this article, you will be able to tell what is IoT is and what is not. You also learn what is IoT devices are used by our army and all over the military, what is IoT technology is used in hospitals? and why education institutes need to implement them as well. Let’s jump right into it.

What IoT Means(Internet of Things)?

There are many definitions of what is IoT but In simple terms, IoT or the Internet Of Things is physical devices anything from a simple Amazon Echo to something more complex like a Weather Station or some other home appliances like a fridge or air-conditioner it is connected on the internet. They work by collecting and sharing their data while being connected to a huge network of other devices. The IoT devices often consist of many sensors and devices to collect data from the surroundings. Here the user can control how it will work but it can work on its own by collecting the data from the internet.

An IoT must need to work on its own without human intervention it’s a reason why a smartphone and laptop isn’t an IoT.

An example of an IoT device

After the data collection, the data is processed in Real-time and this communicates to other devices to perform certain tasks. For example, If we take an IoT enabled LED Bulb for example of IoT the virtual assistant device listens to your command via its Mic sensor and process this, then it sends the data to the connected device which is the bulb and the sensors in the bulb turn on/off the light or change the color tone. Here they can also be scheduled to work and learn gestures like clapping or finger-snapping.

When did IoT start?

That you know What IoT means let’s learn about its history a little bit. Believe it or not, no matter how modern or futuristic IoT might sound it was developed back in the 80s by some college students at Carnegie Mellon University. It was connected to a coke vending machine and used to report when the containers are about to end or if the coke cans were cold.

Quite surprisingly no one brought that up before the end of the next decade.

In 1990 John Romkey invented the first IoT power toaster. Just a year after that another group of students came up with a prototype IoT coffee machine that could tell when it’s about to go empty by taking pictures at given intervals.

Then in 2000 came IoT-enabled fridge telling the customers what needs to be brought and do video calls. In 2005 came a robot rabbit (Nabaztag) telling the weather forecast, latest news highlights, and changes in the stock market. It was the very first step for IoT assistants that eventually evolved into modern-day voice-activated IoT virtual assistants.

What are IoT sensors that are used in the device?

The sensors which are used in an IoT device depend on the device and what it is intended to do. So let’s see what is IoT devices use different kinds of sensors and also what exactly are the sensors

A weather station will have sensors like

Temperature sensor
Humidity sensor
Pressure sensor

A Security system will have sensors like

Proximity sensor
Infrared Sensor
Accesselerometer

Other sensors that are used in IoT devices are

Level Sensor– This sensor is used in waste management systems, water treatment plants, oil refinary brvarage manufacturing plants etc. The sensor measures the level of fluid that is present in a container and this helps to take future decissions.
Gyroscope– This system is used in a automobile industry for various safety features like anti skid and navigation. Video Games also use it for motion detection.
Gas Sensor – Mine workers, does not matter weather its oil or gas and chemical research facility workers, who deal with toxic gasses of the daily basis use the Gas Sensor in any of there IoT saefty device to find out toxic gas leakage to help them evacuate in time.
Optical Sensor– This sensor are used in smartphones, computer, copy machines and IoT enabled lamps.

What are the benefits of IoT for the business?

In the various field of industries and businesses, The benefits of the IoT for business depend on how well the particular industry has implemented the technology; agility and efficiency are usually top considerations. The idea is that enterprises should have access to more data about their own products, own internal systems, and current market trends. This will offer a greater ability to make changes as a result.

Like for example if your own an IoT Traffic camera and its not working properly, If its tracking or showing some vehicles and missing the others or the camera was struck by something, The device can notify the user to the manufacturer that there might be some issue. Now, let’s start with talking about what is IoT technology used for.

Where IoT is used (top 4 places)

There are already so many industries that already use IoT, For example, the Agriculture industry, healthcare, education, security, and even warehouses use IoT devices. Some of the end-User products also have some kind of IoT enabled in them telling the manufacturer how they are working and if is something not performing normally, The IoT device sends a notification to the user and manufacturer that something may need to be changed soon.

How IoT can be used in a warehouse

Thanks to E-Commerce one of the biggest industries today is the warehouse industry. A large number of goods are stored for further commercial use in the warehouses. The eight cities in India which are NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad have some of the most rapid-growing businesses of warehouse renting.

In 2019 it was around 211 million square ft of field noted as a plot for warehouse rent. In 2021 it went to near 300 million. The bigger the plot the bigger effort someone will have to put in to keep things in order. Things like incomplete order or delay, damage to the product, missing items previously had no other way to avoid.

However, incorporating IoT enabled AI devices can help solve all the problems like

(1) Notifying what the next order is and what is delayed. As the IoT collects tons of data about stock and inventory, The problems regarding the delayed delivery can be prevented to the most extent.

(2) The IoT can keep the track of what is going on in the whole premise. Connected sensors along with smart shelf telecast each and every information to the warehouse manager about every situation (low stock, displaced products, unsuitable temperatures, theft)

(3) IoT may always not be a huge industrial machine It can also be something like a wearable device as small as a wristwatch. A wearable device like an employee tracker, that shows the location and health of the person on the premise, often can be used to broadcast an emergency message making the premise more secure.

(4) As we say before IoT can notify system failure, a place like a huge warehouse where heavy machinery is spread around every corner can be a boon, as it warns about system failure and prevents unwanted incidents.

How IoT is used in agriculture

While talking about agriculture we are not only talking about crop farming but also we are including livestock farming and poultry farming too. IoT devices stay connected in a huge network and use the huge amount of collected data as their resources to perform something.

The data is also used by the farmers to take future decisions to help them farm safer and smarter in more changing situations. If often saves money from bad investments for example…..

Just a few days ago one of our new clients Sanveej who brought an IoT weather station from us. After some time he saw significant growth in his crop production. For some months he was not getting deserted results. The weather station showed him it was the issue with the Ph balance of the soil. It helped him not only save money but also find the issue quickly.

An IoT can further help farmers do things like.

(1) Farmers no longer need to be physically on the farm to check the conditions. IoT devices with connected sensors help them monitor all of that from remote.

(2) The collected data from the field as well as over the internet help the farmers see the complete analytics on what works and what does not it helps the farmers improve their decision making.

(3) Being able to collect data faster and more important accurately help ensure less wastage, Practical use of resources, and tracking everything with ease what helps sustainable food production and being compatible with market demands.

How it is used in education

Even though it’s almost impossible to avoid the digital. Even the most modern education institutes deny introducing any modern especially IoT-enabled things in their systems. As parents and teachers are very wary about their implementation of all the E-Learning technologies.

If you are an authority figure in an education institute you know how hard it is to keep everything together properly. Its often hard to keep track of the resources and supplies even harder to manage and distribute them.

The implementation of IoT technology will give education professionals new tools to optimize classwork, improve the efficiency of the learning process, connect with students better, Now lets lee how?

Increase engagement and improved resource management– The IoT gadgets were developed to do things efficiently with ease. Implementing the IoT creates an air-tight network where everything is inter-connected, so the decision-making becomes easier. The IoT also connects all the people in the network so their engagement of increases.

Increase security of students-IoT makes it easy to monitor students, staff, teachers, etc while at the same time processing a lot of data. Abuse of students are not a new thing nor bullying, IoT helps safety tracking of the students making it easier to stop unwanted situation. It can also be used to check the professional training and calibrate how it can be made even more engaging for students.

How IoT helps in healthcare

Healthcare is, fortunately, a field that incorporates modern technologies the fastest. So much so that the medical field has taken a huge chunk in the total IoT market and has created its own segment known as IOMT (Internet of medical things). it is predicted that it will reach around a 176 Billion dollar industry within 2026.

Without any doubt, staying connected in the huge network helps monitor the patients but it does not stop there. Maintaining a proper record of the health of the patient helps predict health risks in the future. Let’s talk about where IoT can be used in the medical field in detail.

Health Monitoring-Obviously remote health monitoring is one of the most known and most used IoT in the medical field. The medical devices collect information like blood pressure, heartbeat, temperature from the patients who are not even present in the medical facility. Wearable devices are often proven helpful for this.

All the data are then are checked by medical professionals for further checking and medicine suggestions. Sometimes algorithms and Ai make it easier to predict future probable disease and also give an emergency notification in someone gets a heart attack or faints.

Heart rate Monitoring-Another thing that IoT devices have made easy monitoring is heart rate. Hospitals will never have enough doctors to look after all the patients. So monitoring everything all the time is quite hard. Even for those who are present at the healthcare centers And even daily check-ups don’t ensure staying risk-free from heart attack and other heart diseases.

Previously huge machines needed to be connected to the patients all the time. Now we have small IoT enables devices for heart monitoring. Some of them are wearable and provide accuracy of up to 90%. It’s another place where IoT has made life easier.

Ensuring Hygiene-Everyone knows how the pandemic, made us all rethink hygiene but how will you ensure that everyone is maintaining it? There were no machines ensuring if someone has washed their hands or not or If someone is wearing the mask or wearing it properly or not. The Ai power IoT devices make people remember to wash their hands and also remind them to wear masks properly.

Can IoT be used in military applications

Right after the healthcare military is another sector that uses the most advanced technologies, as soon as it drops in the market even the predecessor of the whole internet ARPANET at first was used by the US Army back in 1960. So obviously IoT being the most latest tech now will be used by the military. Especially when most of the countries revenue goes to its defense at first. The places where the military uses IoT are

Now let’s see what is IoT devices use in the military.

IoT Drone-powered drones are used to survey terrains to check and create a 3D model of the terrain and make future judgments on how the battle plan and strategy would take place. Drones fly automatically and cost so less so today the use of drones is soo widespread.

Health vest-It’s almost impossible to track the health of soldiers on the field so. The introduction of IoT made it possible to attach a small but powerful sensor with a huge range in the army uniform to keep sending the data about the health of that defense personal. So they can be removed from the field when required. It is literally saving lives.

Vehicle Condition Checker-Another place where IoT can be used in the military is to properly manage the fleet. It is a checking task to check things properly while on a mission. Not to mention the knowledge of internal combustion engines are also a barrier sometimes. Things breaking down in a serious business-like military can affect the success of the mission and even cost lives embedding them with an IoT can help check everything like milage engine health etc all together on the go. So is another reason why the military use IoT so much

where IoT data must be secured

Are IoT devices secure?

The IoT is still in its baby steps, The IoT end-user devices that were made for the masses are mostly made in haste and were not given too much focus on security. Though modern IoT development companies use technologies that have made the IoT most secure than ever there are still some tiny loopholes in them. As cybercrime is growing day by day patching the loopholes has become most important now than ever before here are the ways you can do that.

How to keep your IoT secure 3 tips

(1) Using PKI- PKI refers to Public Key Infrastructure. It’s a protocol that lets more devices connect to the network. Without the presence of it an unauthorized new device can be prevented from entering the network.

(2) Using a secure network- Use a secure network, for example, using an SSL Certificate in the website adds more safety to the network and can protect the network from things like, DDoS(DIstributed Denial of Service) here the attacker sends a huge number of malicious traffic and that makes the network vulnerable. Using a secure network saves your IoT from this things.

(3) 2 layer security for the cloud- All the data of the IoT gets stored in the Cloud so the cloud needs to be secure with passwords. It needed to be changed frequently and should provide a block everything feature for some hour if he puts the wrong password for some time again and again. It should also send the notification to the owner. So you should ask your IoT developer to add that features for you in the system.

Conclusion

Now you know what is IoT, what IoT means, and also isn’t an IoT. For those who have questions about what is IoT internet of things is in terms of the security of the network, we have also given brief details about that hope you liked it. Those tips are not the only ones, there are many other ways but those two are the most important and easy to do.

SO now if someone asks you what is IoT devices you can brag about knowing everything about it.

Hope you liked the article

Have a nice day.