UNDERSTANDING THE INTERNET OF THINGS (3/3)
When you are neither a geek nor a “techie”, you may feel that the Internet of Things is complex and not for you.
If this is what you really think, this article will speak to you!
Find hereafter our third and last article with the objective to help you understand clearly the 3rd revolution of the Internet : The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things can be summarized by the combination of 3 main topics :
- The Object / Device
- The Connectivity
- The Data
The challenge is to give value to the data
As we explained in the two previous articles, millions of devices create a huge amount of data transmitted using wireless connectivity. And why does that matter ?
This tremendous volume of data, also called « Big Data », is stored and processed to derive value.
With 50 billion connected devices forecasted by 2020, the real challenge for companies will be creating value from « Big Data ». Clearly it means that companies or people will pay for a useful way to access this data and added value.
Let’s have a look at the scheme below which explains how the data ‘travels’ within this complex environment.
- The data is generated by the device (e.g just a simple temperature value from a warehouse)
- The data is transmitted using a network from the the warehouse to a virtual storage location called the ‘cloud’.
- The ‘cloud’ is physically a server somewhere that will store the data in a database
- Once this data is processed, it can be viewed by the final user on multiple plateforms (Mobile application, Email, Web App, SMS, social network etc…)
The challenge is to give value to this information to make it :
- readable
- structured
- easily interpreted
The goal of every company working in the « Big Data » environment is to create « Smart » data
Let’s take a first example: a building can have its electric meter connected, and the sensor will send a lot of information of little interest… But since these data allow residents to adjust their electric consumption to decrease drastically their energy bills then this data becomes really « Smart » .
Let’s move into the industry with a second example : a company equips some carts used for products transportation with a very basic device. This device will just tell every time a cart checks out from a location and then checks in to another. Every information given by a sensor is really poor (just cheks in / checks out !). But if this company agregates this information all together then that will create a real added value by improving user experience and generating money savings.
Practical applications
Other areas that are revolutionized by the Internet of Things, include improving energy efficiency and predictive maintenance to commercial assets. By enabling real-time supervision, power outages can be now be anticipated before they occur and huge increases in energy savings are now possible.
No doubt that connected devices can provide real answers to many problems and this brings a real benefit not only for businesses but also for individuals.
The Internet of Things is a revolution that will bring intelligence to objects that haven’t had a voice.
The potential is limitless. Many innovations await us and tomorrow we will finally wonder how we existed before the IoT, just as we do now with the Internet (revolution #1) and Smartphone (revolution #2)!
Still have questions ?
Despite the exceptional and highly educational quality of this series 🙂 , if you still have some questions about the Internet of the Things, you can read more articles on our blog, just like the article L’IoT, what is it ?
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Discover our previous articles
- L’IoT, what is it ?
- IoT : new use cases thanks to Ultra Low Cost
- Blockchain Technology, a powerful concept
- Understanding the Internet of Things: 1- The recipe for connected objects
- Understanding the Internet of Things: 2- Connectivity: choose the tools adapted to your recipe