Reflecting on IoT

Throughout the past year, we have presented several articles on IoT, the Internet of Things. I was asked if I could summarize the ideas in a short couple of paragraphs. Of course, summaries always leave the writer with the issue of potentially throwing out some of the key ideas that make the topic interesting. I said I would give it a try anyway.

The Internet of Things is all about connecting diverse electronics to make them even more useful. The flow of information often starts with analog sensors, measuring almost anything one can think of, from temperature, speed, pressure, and location, to color, voice, and personal characteristics. Often the analog signals are made into digital ones and zeros and transmitted somewhere. There is often some type of processing of this information to add meaning or context. The data can then be used to inform people or machines which in turn take some action. The range of possible uses is extremely wide, from telling where your cat is to turning on air conditioning when someone is anticipated to be in the building. It can be used to automatically order replacement parts when a machine becomes aware that parts are wearing out or sensing that you are at the grocery store and sending a text reminder that it thinks you are running low on milk. But the IoT is not just a cute toy. For example, the amount of money to be saved by smart energy use is tremendous. There are predictions that the major use of IoT for the next several years will be retrofitting to make old machinery more efficient.

As one might expect, good things come at a price. As expected, there are a large number of technical issues. We talked about sensors and issues on making electronics smaller by such approaches as stacked die. The article on having someone taking over your car, while you are driving it, points out what is likely the biggest problem of all: making devices so that, either intentionally or unintentionally, the interconnectivity does not lead to major problems. While having your refrigerator send spam may be a humorous annoyance, having one's pacemaker subject to a hacker is truly frightening. During the next year, we will investigate more aspects of the IoT and some of the ramifications of implementing it. We will also look at how the technology is evolving.