The Internet of… What?
At The Curve we do a lot of talking about “The Internet of Things”, we offer IoT consultancy services, we even host IoT events, and at the office, there’s more often than not, a half-assembled “thing” sitting on a desk waiting for its life as a connected internet device to begin.
For those outside of the technology bubble however, IoT can be just another vague technology term like “Big Data” or “The Cloud”, and without added context, it doesn’t really mean a whole lot. The “internet” part in IoT is fairly straightforward, but “things”? Really?
Continuing to compound the confusion, as people immersed in technology, we’re often guilty of rushing into talking about the endless possibilities of IoT, or the latest exciting IoT project we’ve worked on, which can sometimes leave the simpler questions unanswered.
This blog post then, aims to keep things nice and simple, and provide just enough information to help the completely uninitiated begin to appreciate, and perhaps even get excited about IoT in the same way we do.
So, what exactly is a ‘thing’?
The “things” in IoT generally refer to little internet-connected devices – tiny computers with a connection to the internet, often embedded into larger devices to serve a specific purpose.
Smart Home tech is usually what people first think of when it comes to IoT, and as an example, it works pretty well to explain what we mean by a connected device. Take a smart lightbulb (the kind people love to show off when you go round to their houses). These bulbs contain a small WiFi chip that allows them to communicate with a hub or an app on your phone, enabling you to stylishly turn the lights on and off from the comfort of your sofa.
Sometimes, a “thing” will be an appliance. Dishwashers, ovens, and even washing machines (sadly) are now becoming internet-connected to integrate functionality into the apps on our phones, allowing us not only to impress our friends with lighting shows but rinse cycles too.
Moving beyond the home, we’re increasingly seeing cars, city infrastructure, healthcare devices, and industrial monitoring equipment becoming internet-connected. These connections allow devices to perform helpful tasks, such as telling us when the next bus is due or alerting healthcare providers when a diabetic patient’s blood sugar is low.
Clearly then, the term IoT, in addition to not being very descriptive, also covers an incredibly broad range of applications, and if that weren’t confusing enough, we sometimes even stretch the term to include devices that aren’t even connected to the internet – we’ll save the blog post on autonomous interconnected IoT devices for another time though.
The bigger picture with IoT
If “The Internet of things” is this rather nebulous, somewhat unhelpful term then, how do we as a company explain what it is we do, and how do our customers know what sort of things we can help them with?
The answer is to zoom out a little bit, and instead of thinking about the technology itself, we need to think about outcomes, and understand how these small, smart circuits, seamlessly slot into society.
Often an IoT device will be part of a chain, leveraging the device itself, connectivity, software, and analysis in order to solve a particularly niche problem. Two of The Curve’s recent IoT projects have involved using small cameras, computer vision, and data analysis to monitor the utilisation of meeting rooms in a large organisation, and sticking sensors on train carriages to monitor the weight of them to help track and predict passenger numbers (more about these later on!).
In both these cases, the connected device, “the thing”, has been the small computer that does data collection. The solution itself has involved writing software to collate and log the data, some of our best brains understanding the data we’ve logged, and more software to turn the data into valuable information and insights.
Weighing trains, and using AI to understand passenger numbers is a far cry from telling Alexa to run the rinse cycle again, but neither would be possible without the tiny connected devices logging, sensing, and sending information at the heart of the processes. On their own however, those tiny computers probably wouldn’t be worth writing about, so really, when we talk about IoT, we’re talking about much more than just things.
Industry and IoT – where it gets exciting
When we start to think about IoT as more than just smart lightbulbs – impressive as they may be, the things start to get exciting (we think at least). By now our term “IoT” might be feeling a bit weary given how stretched it’s become, but one sector pushing the boundaries even further in IoT is manufacturing and industry.
While smart home IoT was largely driven by companies solving conveniences that we didn’t even realise we needed (the light switch wasn’t exactly broken for the past 90 years), industrial IoT represents a significant shift. Here, decreasing hardware costs, and innovations in connectivity and software mean IoT is finally addressing real-world challenges effectively and economically.
These new efficiencies, combined with The Curve’s expertise in both hardware and software is opening up a whole world of opportunities, and we’re currently quoting for, and solving problems for customers that would have been out of reach just a few years ago.
Put simply, IoT’s industrial context is enabling solutions that were once an ambition, and it’s becoming a practical route to delivering measurable ROI.
If you’d like to see some examples of our recent IoT work, take a look at our case studies:
- Leveraging IoT and Real-Time Data to Keep Commuters Safe
- Determining NHS Room Occupancy Levels Through The Use of IoT Devices and Computer Vision
What does all this mean for business?
If there’s one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that IoT isn’t really about the devices themselves, it’s about the outcomes they enable. Those outcomes can broadly be distilled into the following key areas:
Data
IoT devices can collect information that would otherwise be unavailable or impractical to gather. Whether it’s leveraging small, cost effective sensors to log and monitor, or it’s about processing data in a different way to gain valuable insights, understanding data is a key component to modern IoT.
Often organisations have mountains of data flowing through them, filled with untapped potential, but they might not know how to access it or interpret it. Uncovering this potential and tapping into unrealised opportunity is where expert advice can pay dividends.
Compliance and safety
Safety is paramount to any business, and IoT devices can help save lives by doing things like alert on gas leaks, monitor vitals, or detecting equipment faults before they lead to failures.
On the slightly less dramatic end of the spectrum, sometimes meeting regulations is a simple case of recording what things went where. IoT devices and some clever automation can often help eliminate manual processes leading to a more efficient route towards compliance.
Cost saving and environmental impact
Cost saving and being kind to the environment tend to go hand in hand, simply because using less usually costs less. IoT devices can monitor energy usage, reduce waste, and highlight inefficiencies in real time, and to boot there’s also a huge range of environmental sensing devices available that can track a vast amount of our environment: air quality, noise levels, temperature, humidity, and way more. The tools can provide valuable oversight, and analytical information for businesses for sustainability projects, regulatory reporting, or for plain and simple doing good.
So whether it’s optimising the control of heating and lighting in offices, or keeping tabs on emissions at a factory or facility, these technologies enable smarter decisions that are both environmentally and financially sound.
Customer service
Customer experience improves when things just work. IoT can enable systems to report issues before they escalate and make services more responsive. Whether it’s devices monitoring your infrastructure, or a self-healing production line, IoT devices and the software that backs them can help improve the day-to-day experience for customers, often without them realising.
If you’re a business facing challenges in any of these areas, or even if you’re just intrigued to know more about what IoT could do for you, it’s worth talking to an expert with experience. If you’d like that experienced expert to be one of our super-knowledgeable team, and in an environment where pushy selling is not on the agenda, feel free to contact us to schedule a chat. Or, if you’ve managed to make it this far in the article, maybe an IoT event could be your cup of tea? Keep an eye on our socials for all the details!