Internet of Things Not Just Smoke and Mirrors
Nowadays it seems like tech companies are glomming onto any new buzz word that makes their product sound interesting, but I think it’s more than that. Business use cases are driving consumer electronics and information technology like never before. “Buzz words” are becoming more important for communicating technically complex ideas and emerging hybrid markets to the users that are driving them into existence. The popularization of terms like cloud, big data, and IoT act as a short cut for explaining, to a relatively novice group of technical users, the overall function of these innovations.
Just this month, Google Trends reported that “Internet of Things”, or IoT, has reached it’s peak in search popularity. So, I took some time to explore what IoT looks like from the perspective of a company like iVEDiX. The diagram below is an attempt at visually communicating IoT and identifying some familiar overlaps that exist.
By no means is this the full picture, but it should give you an idea of how these concepts are converging to bring about the idea of IoT – if it doesn’t let me know your thoughts in the comments. So, what does the center of this venn diagram look like. Here are a few examples from TDWI:
These devices can stream critical data to centralized analytics systems to determine what is going on with the patient compared to his/her peer group. [This means] early detection of catastrophic illness (and potential extension of life expectancy) is made possible by leveraging machines doing the diagnosis instead of the subjective judgment of a doctor or lengthy trial-and-error treatments.
Electricity meters have been feeding data to billing systems for decades, but now the meters, the HVAC controllers, and building sensors can work together with public meteorological data to predict and prevent utility brownouts and peak energy consumption at high rates. It also puts businesses in the position to take advantage of demand/response events and save on their energy costs.
Technology, such as Apache Spark, facilitates fast data processing and event streaming to handle real-time data feeds. The latest data visualization products, running in the cloud, allow for users to filter through very large data sets instantaneously and swiftly determine the best course of action – whether it is preventing a loss of life or a factory energy outage.
Thanks to buzzwords, business users can not only drive these types of innovations, but also rally support for them across their organization. So, next time someone puts down a “Buzz Word” remember that it may be the tipping point for investing in a new technology.
Do you agree, or disagree? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.