A pair of glasses are designed to connect with your phone over Bluetooth, letting you do anything from boarding the correct train to getting real-time translations for signs that otherwise may go unnoticed. That’s just one example of what the Internet of Things (IoT) has to offer. So that both consumers and businesses are ordering productivity tools left and right. Here we discuss how the Internet of Things will change our daily lives in many exciting ways!
What is IoT?
The Internet of Things is a term given to this emerging wave of technologies that can connect any device with an on and off switch to the Internet. This includes everything from cell phones, refrigerators, washing machines, coffee makers, thermostats, lamps, wearable devices like smart-watches, smart glasses, or Fitbits to industrial machines like jet engines which are now being used in factories across the world. The Internet of Things enables these products to be connected via sensors that collect data about their use and automatically share them online. Users can access the collected data through their computers or smartphones.
IoT in our daily life
Fitness Trackers
Fitness trackers and other embedded devices with IoT connectivity are a new market and the next big thing in wellness after mobile health apps. Fitness trackers are an excellent example of how the Internet of Things creates new opportunities for companies to innovate and create new business models. Fitness trackers used to be a commodity product that anyone could make, but now it is a premium product. This sensor technology can collect human movement, posture, and environment data. The collected data is used to determine people’s health and help with various lifestyles.
Apple Watch is an example of an activity monitor that monitors your activity level.
Source: Apple
Allied Market Research says the global wearable fitness trackers market size was valued at $38.68 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $124.32 billion by 2028.
Smart DoorBell
Smart Doorbells are consumer electronic devices inside a common doorbell that you can find in most homes. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), this product has been given a significant upgrade. These units can connect to your phone, alert you when someone is at the door, stream live video to the phone. Time-lapse recording allows you to see who had visited while you were away. It works day and night, so the presence of visitors is easy to determine.
Source: Victure
Smart Appliances
One of the most revolutionary and alluring effects of the IoT is having intelligent appliances. These appliances work even better than before because of the connectivity. Most of the makers of such intelligent devices focus on an entire home automation system. The technology is built on monitoring systems designed to keep energy costs down by providing information that can be acted upon.
Smart appliances will be running data processing programs at the firmware level, the code that directs the internal functions of appliances. Embedded software is becoming more complex as companies monetize their market share by providing better user interfaces and adding new features such as predictive analysis and proactive maintenance. Research and Markets report says the Global Smart Kitchen Appliances Market size was estimated at USD 18.51 billion in 2020 and is expected to reach USD 21.29 billion in 2021.
For instance, think of a smart refrigerator that emails you when the milk is about to go out of date or a WiFi-controlled AC that can be adjusted using your phone from work. These smart home appliances are all Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and their functionality is bound only by the limits of your creativity.
Source: Samsung
Smart Home Hubs
It’s one of the most powerful tools for building a smart home, and as you can control all the devices in your house from your smartphone. However, if at least one hub exists then, you can use it as a way to control not just the devices inside your house but also the software that controls the devices.
For example, The Homey Smart Home System aims at the smart home segment. It is a Smart Home hub that controls lights, temperature, and power outlets. By adding sensors to doors and windows, it can also control shutters. Connected with other devices through Bluetooth or Zigbee, it can turn on lamps when you enter a room, open the shutters when the sun rises, and turn off all appliances when you leave home.
Source: Homey
Smart Cars
Smart cars are currently equipped with technology that allows cars to communicate with each other and their surroundings while advancing driver-assist functions and personalization. Let’s say you’re leaving work on a sunny day, filling your car with gas. A sensor above the pump measures the color of your shirt and identifies that it’s red. Your smartphone gets a push notification (that you accept) telling it to preheat the seats. Your dashboard displays a report of all traffic issues around you before you get in. It automatically increases the music volume to compensate for the road noise and dims the dashboard for your nighttime driving pleasure.
For instance, the Tesla car is a symbol of significant IoT development. Imagine a car that opens your garage door for you before you go home, giving you remote control over your car’s lights, heating, and charging. It has an app framework to craft our car app to control the car’s speed, battery level, and location. It downloads and installs software, firmware to upgrade itself and sets up servicing schedules at nearby service stations.
Source: Tesla
How the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is Improving Our Lives
In the new Industrial Internet of Things, vast amounts of data from machines, plants, and entire factories will be combined with software that quickly identifies patterns and anomalies. As a result, the IoT will make manufacturing of all kinds more efficient, from consumer goods to machine tools to cars and medical devices. It will enable the mass customization of products. And it will make a wide range of services more affordable, from predictive maintenance to new kinds of predictive monitoring for people.
The first and most apparent benefit of IoT is that it can be applied to logistics and the supply chain. Everything that goes into your final product will be tracked and stored in a database. This applies to the material as well as the man-hours. It’s just easier to put a reader on every device than it is to keep an employee at every station writing down what is happening there. We can see that the industrial Internet of things plays an increasingly critical role in the success of industrial organizations.
For instance, today’s jet engines are incredibly complex, and the innovation in aerospace is moving at a blistering pace, with air travel set to become even safer and more efficient. To support this innovation, Boeing is leveraging the Internet of Things (IoT) in its manufacturing processes to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Boeing is using IoT devices to scan for information about parts and solve today’s manufacturing problems.
Source: BAE Systems
Conclusion
We are surrounded by technologies that are transforming the way we live. The Internet of Things (IoT) is taking form, growing with each day, and promises to bring a new era to our daily life. With billions of things connected, it opens up endless possibilities for innovation in every aspect of the modern technological society.
We at Visionify offer our valued customers the best quality and affordable computer vision solutions. With our services, you can innovate new ways of creating unique automation. In addition, we build custom advanced vision systems with deep learning/machine learning capabilities integrated into your product as a single component.
