The Internet of Things: what is it, why and how it works

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We will tell you what the Internet of Things is, why it is needed and what future awaits us: from fantasy to real life.

What is the Internet of Things

Now many people talk about the Internet of Things, but not everyone understands what it is.

According to Wikipedia, this is the concept of a computing network of physical objects ("things") equipped with built-in technologies for interacting with each other or with the external environment, which considers the organization of such networks as a phenomenon that can restructure economic and social processes, excluding actions and operations the need for human participation.

In simple terms, the Internet of Things is a kind of network that connects things. And by things I mean anything: a car, an iron, furniture, slippers. All this will be able to "communicate" with each other without human intervention using the transmitted data.

The emergence of such a system was expected, because laziness is the engine of progress. You don't have to go to the coffee maker in the morning to make coffee. She already knows when you usually wake up, and by this time she will brew aromatic coffee herself. Great? Perhaps, but how realistic is it and when will it appear?

How it works

We are at the beginning of the road, and it is too early to talk about the Internet of Things. Take, for example, the coffee maker I wrote about above. Now a person has to independently enter the time of his awakening so that she makes coffee for him in the morning. But what happens if at this time a person is not at home or he wants tea? Yes, everything is the same, since he did not change the program and the soulless piece of iron again brewed his coffee. This scenario is interesting, but it is more of an automation of the process than the Internet of Things.

There is always a man at the helm, he is the center. There are more and more smart gadgets every year, but they do not work without a human team. This unfortunate coffee maker will have to constantly monitor, change the program, which is inconvenient.

How is it supposed to work

The Internet of Things implies that a person defines a goal, and does not set a program to achieve this goal. It is even better if the system itself analyzes the data and predicts the desires of a person.

You are driving home from work, tired and hungry. At this time, the car has already informed the house that in half an hour it will bring you: they say, get ready. The light turns on, the thermostat sets a comfortable temperature, and dinner is prepared in the oven. We went into the house - the TV turned on with a recording of the game of your favorite team, dinner is ready, welcome home.

These are the main features of the Internet of Things:

• It is a constant accompaniment to the daily activities of a person.
• Everything happens transparently, unobtrusively, with a focus on results.
• The person indicates what should work out, not how to do it.

Say, fantastic? No, this is the near future, but in order to achieve such results, much more needs to be done.

How to achieve this

1. One Center

It is logical that at the center of all these things should not be a person, but some kind of device, which will transmit the program to achieve the goal. It will monitor other devices and perform tasks, and collect data. Such a device should be in every home, office and other places. They will be united by a single network through which they will exchange data and help people anywhere.

We already see the rudiments of such a center. Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple seems to be working on something similar too. Such systems can already play the role of a smart home center, although their capabilities are still limited.

2. Uniform standards

This will become, perhaps, the main obstacle on the way to the global Internet of things. For large-scale operation of the system, a single language is required. Apple, Google, Microsoft are currently working on their ecosystem. But they all move separately, in different directions, which means that at best we will get local systems that are difficult to unite even at the city level.

Perhaps one of the systems will become a standard, or each network will remain local and will not grow into something global.

3. Security

Naturally, when developing such a system, you need to take care of data protection. If a hacker breaks into the network, he will know absolutely everything about you. Clever things will turn you over to hackers with giblets, so data encryption is worth some serious work. Of course, they are already working on this, but periodically emerging scandals indicate that perfect security is still far away.

What awaits us in the near future

In the near future, smart homes are waiting for us, which will themselves open doors for owners when approaching, maintain a comfortable microclimate, independently replenish the refrigerator and order the necessary medications if a person is sick. And before that, the house will receive the indicators from the smart bracelet and send them to the doctor. Self-driving cars will drive on the roads, and there will be no more traffic jams on the roads themselves. The Internet of Things will allow the development of a more advanced traffic control system that can prevent traffic jams and congestion.

Already, many gadgets work in conjunction with various systems, but in the next 5-10 years we will see a real boom in the development of the Internet of Things. But in the future, the alignment is possible as in the cartoon "WALL-E", where humanity has turned into helpless fat men, served by robots. So-so perspective. What do you think?