The Internet of Things Explained
I’m sure you have come across the term the ‘Internet of Things’ recently, but are not quite sure what it’s all about.
At a basic level, the “Internet of Things” or IoT (pronounced eye-oh-tee) is all about taking physical objects that presently we do not consider to be “digital devices” and augmenting these to connect them to the internet.
An example is the smart fridge that automatically reads tags on your food items and uses the internet to identify them as milk, butter, eggs and that large cheesecake you bought! With weight sensitive shelves, the fridge works out when your last 3 litre milk carton is nearing empty. It knows from data previously recorded that you normally drink 1 litre a day and so at the right time automatically sends you a text to bring home milk that evening, or adds it to your online shopping list to make sure you are not drinking black coffee and eating dry cereal for breakfast.
Another great IoTs example would be a project that we worked on for AGA Rangemaster. AGA, a very traditional brand, wanted to appeal to the tech savvy generation with a new range of ovens that could be controlled remotely via smartphone. We were able to work with AGA to create this functionality, which allows AGA oven owners to control their oven wherever they may be – on the bus, in the office, anywhere.
Why should I sit up and listen?
Why does it matter? The perfect storm of declining sensor costs, greater and cheaper or even zero cost connectivity as well as flexible cloud based data services means that any business can now look to joining the world of IoT to enhance their products, remain competitive and relevant, improve business processes and ultimately be more profitable.
Make no mistake, much like the advent of the World Wide Web, IoT is fast becoming one of the most significant drivers of daily life and will undoubtedly grow to become an integral part of our personal and professional lives.
Businesses that embrace this will win new customers, be competitive and relevant. Businesses that don’t will end up with the equivalent of a fridge full of gone off milk on their hands…
Embracing IoT
Here in ActionPoint, having experience of working on IoT projects for a variety of small and large clients alike, the Internet of Things is one of our core competencies. We’ve learnt a lot, we’d be happy to share this and to explore with you how embracing IoT could benefit your organisation.
If you would like to learn more and chat with one of our IoT experts, please Click Here to call us or request a call back.