In the 80s and 90s, last century, the world lived in age of personal computing and this computing extended to around 20 years. In 1999, Kevin Ashton was the first person who used the term Internet of Things (ioT). He referred the IoT as uniquely identifiable connected objects with radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. IoT examines the interconnection of devices within the existing Internet infrastructure. IoT is expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and looks at a variety of protocols, domains, and applications.
Some of the examples of IoT devices are smart watch, smart TV, smart firewall for the smart home, smart button controller, Nest Cam etc.
All these IoT devices are embedded with sensors, processors and network connectivity which helps them to collect the data and process the data to a base station or gateway. The gateway makes sure the translation of protocols to IP layer protocols to connect to the cloud data and ultimately the data from cloud will be passed to the end users where the data received can either be controlled, processed or seen. Early 2007 launch of the new time of technology and the new age of computing. From that time until now days almost everyone has a smart phone in his pocket that can do whatever the computer were do, and no one can believe that in the future will have something do what the computer do but with smaller than the computer.
Critical requirement of IoT
A critical requirement of an IoT is that the things in the network must be inter-connected. IoT system architecture must guarantee the operations of IoT, which bridges the gap between the physical and the virtual worlds. Design of IoT architecture involves many factors such as networking, communication, business models and processes, and security. In designing the architecture of IoT, the extensibility, scalability, and interoperability among heterogeneous devices and their models should be taken into consideration. Due to the fact that things may move physically and need to interact with each other in real-time mode, IoT architecture should be adaptive to make devices interact with other things dynamically and support unambiguous communication of events
Types of IoT
There are so many types of Internet of Things (IoT) in different categories, the popular one are smart homes, smart manufacturing, smart buildings, transport, education, etc. The smart home is a good application for many reasons for example security, quality of life, comfort, and now days we actually use some devices in our homes related to IoT like lamps, TVs, cameras, air conditions all of these thing will improve the revolutions of the smart homes and make a new age of technology and comfort. The smart manufacturing also will bring a revolutions in the manufacturing instead of the old ones, because it makes the works and the employees easier and comfortable and the quality of products is increasing, in addition the factory owners will but sensors in the machines to monitor it and send alerts for the supervisor to inform him that something is about to happened in the machine or some of the components is about to finished and that will make him know the thing before it happened and that will save time and keep the factory work all the time. In smart transport, Internet of Things (IoT) will help the police to track any car or to monitor the traffic and see what happen on the streets so they can make decision for it.
The Internet of Things (IoT) in education will help the student to learn more and learn with fun and make the learning process easier and helpful, also the students can share their works between each other. The teacher share a file with the students then the students open that file and take the test, in addition the students can expand their knowledge in one click not like the old days you have to search in books and libraries. Farmers are using meaningful insights from the data to yield better return on investment. Sensing for soil moisture and nutrients, controlling water usage for plant growth and determining custom fertilizer are some simple uses of IoT, such as Green Houses
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Advantages
You will be able to watch your home via smartphone and you can know what your refrigerator need without open it, it will send notification to your smartphone, and in smart camera you can see who came to your home and what he is doing. Internet of Things (IoT) will save time because no need to goes to every lamp and device to turn it off, just one click and your good to go. Also if you went out from home and you forgot to close the air conditions or the heater, you will be able to turn it off even when you out your home. You can control and utilization of the energy resource can save by insert this technology and keep the devices under control. And it alarms you if anything goes wrong.
Disadvantages
Let’s say if there are some hackers will hack your home or any device in your home, he will be able to control everything in your home. When you buy smart devices manufacturers will make an application for that device to control it, and if you buy more devices that mean more applications, for that it might all the companies and manufacturers will have a one standard to work on it like what we see in network protocols. But compatibility for some devices leading to some problems with users and makes them monopoly the market.
Technology will control almost everything in our lives and we will addict for it. For that we have to control it before control us and make our live easier and enjoyable and not making the technology effect on the relationships or the community.
Security & privacy issues
Since the devices be more connected because the IoT, the security be the first thing the companies and the consumers thinking about it. The fact is security of data become the first, which the companies work to upgrade it. With the speed of separation of IoT and the big data, the privacy could be end. The scientists fear about using the information of users without knowing the customers. The reason for the technology it’s for help us, but maybe it will be very dangers for us if it was in the wrong hands.
BI intelligence which is a company interested in IoT in the market and they think in 2020 there will be more than 24 billion devices of IoT in the world and this is mean they will 4 devices for each person in the world. And as the 2020 is close, the technology company will pay a lot of billions for IoT such as applications, devices, cloud data, security, and communications, but this money which is spend for the IoT will be beneficial because in 2020 almost all the people in the world will pay IoT devices, as that money which spend will generate 13$ trillion in 2025.
Future challenges
It has been estimated that in 2020, Internet of Things (IoT) market will be two times bigger than smartphones and computers and tablets market together. Also they expect the number of users that they use Internet of Things (IoT) in 2020 will reach to 35 billion device connected to the internet, because of that they now works on IPv6 to absorbs the number of users in the future because the IPv4 now is running out of IPs. In addition they expect the income of Internet of Things (IoT) market will be more than $600 billion in 2020.
[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]The author, Khurram Adeel Shaikh, is a PhD Scholar and a freelance writer. Currently he is associated with Bahria University, Karachi Campus, as Assistant Professor and could be reached at khurramadeel.bukc@bahria.edu.pk[/box]