In case you haven’t heard, the internet of things (alongside and with big data and advanced AI) is one of the most exciting technical developments of our times. Right now, our phones are connected to the internet, our laptops are connected to the internet, and many of us even have our televisions connected to the internet.
The IoT revolution envisions a world where everything is connected to the internet: thermostats, cars, backpacks, bus stations, necklaces, sidewalks, buildings, and even some day, people. Below is a breakdown of 4 industries that will be disrupted by IoT, and a glimpse of what the disruption might look like
Consumers
The aspect of IoT that has received the most attention is it’s applications for the everyday consumer. Refrigerators that know when you’re out of orange juice and so place an order for some more on Amazon, thermometers that you can control from your phone, glasses that display a digitally enhanced reality. Some have heralded the death of consumer IoT, but what these individuals are really speaking to is a slow-down in the development of “smart home” IoT. It seems that companies are focusing their efforts on how they can master IoT outside of the home before they move to the more economically prohibitive, harder to sell smart kitchen sinks.
Healthcare
Right now we’re seeing a big shift in the healthcare industry toward population health and patient-centered paradigms. With population health, medical providers aim to harness data on segments of population in order to efficiently identify at-risk cohorts and determine the best means of addressing them. Kind of like the minority report of medicine. In order to harness the sort of data that they need, healthcare organizations are looking at utilizing a number of different strategies, including IoT. Coincidentally, this also goes hand-in-hand with providing patients the best experience possible. Imagine a world in which EKGs feed directly into a computer, a pill bottle can tell a pharmacist when you’ve used up all of your prescription medication, and a heart-rate monitor can automatically notify medical services when you have a heart attack. These examples lean toward the more exotic of the possibilities available to IoT, but the ideas behind them are not so far-fetched as they might seem.
Heavy Industry
Somewhere in New Mexico, a computer is analyzing data being sent to it by a refrigerator in produce warehouse just south of LA. The goal? To find the optimum temperature at which to keep produce per watt of energy, while still adhering to food safety standards. A number of companies in sectors such as manufacturing, mining, and automotive have begun investing in IoT with the hope of driving up profits. Investments in IoT are predicted to triple by 2020 and businesses are going to be the largest contributors. A number of heavy hitters like Honeywell and IBM, are entering the fray.
Infrastructure
Given the applications of IoT in smart refrigerators, smart oil rigs, and smart healthcare, it’s little surprise that government agencies and utility giants alike would be interested in harnessing the power of IoT. Smart power grids, smart traffic lights, smart rail switches: these are just a few examples of infrastructural IoT. The Netherlands has just become the first country to create a network dedicated to supporting IoT, which will allow businesses and utilities to exchange data regarding a number of things and may even speed up the handling of baggage at Schiphol Airport.
As IoT continues to evolve, no doubt additional applications will reveal themselves. There are already projects looking at marketing and . Naturally, with any new technology, a number of challenges present themselves as well, chief of which is privacy. For the moment, there is no shortage of applications to be developed across the its many spokes. Bring on all the things.