What is IoT?
IoT is now recognised and considered a key driver of the digital transformation agenda that enables businesses to reinvent products, services, internal operations and business models.
So, what are the origins of IoT?
Internet 1.0
Computers were large and typically standalone bits of hardware with no need to communicate. Some advantages of connecting computers included moving data/results and distant messaging. However, reasons, why they weren’t connected was because computers were uncommon and hard/expensive to interconnect.
What happened next?
Computers got smaller and cheaper and computing made simple tasks much more efficient. Far more data was being made and needed sharing, and it was becoming cheaper and easier to connect.
A computer could now fit in your pocket and access the internet similarly to a PC. There was a boom in small and affordable electronics components and telephone operators needed to provide access to the full internet on the go.
And so all the key elements for IoT existed due to smartphones:
- Low cost/power microprocessors
- Permanent connectivity
- Miniaturised sensors (accelerometers, light sensors etc)
- Li-Po batteries
- Billions of devices – IP infrastructure
Industrial IoT simply defines when IoT is implemented in an industrial and manufacturing environment.
Industry 4.0 is the term used to describe the move towards digitalisation which has led to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and industrial settings. This includes IoT, cloud computing and cyber-physical systems. Industry 4.0 will see shifts in Heavy Industry which will be heavily driven by IoT and Artificial Intelligence.
Mesh Network of IoT devices at Heavy Industry site