According to Statistics, about 21.5 billion electronic devices are connected to the internet. This means that more devices are actually connected to the web than the total number of people on earth. Sounds exaggerating, right? but apparently it is quite true due to the influence of Internet of things also known as IoT. Therefore, a lot of trends have resulted from the Internet of Things.
The Internet of things is a linkage between the physical and the virtual world through the help of the Internet. This allows for automatic operations and no action from the user, but can be remotely monitored through applications. Its various components act like the body parts of a human being, which include microcontrollers; they act like the brain, radar sensors; for sensing radio waves, a network of routers and switches ;for locating and transferring data, power semi-conductors, temperature and pressure metres etc.
What exactly are the trends of Internet of Things in the last few years of its existence?
1. SMART CITY
This is an urban area that integrates digital, information and communication technologies to increase its efficiency in service, network, infrastructure , the quality of government and citizens’ welfare. Smart cities like Singapore, Switzerland, Istanbul, Zurich, Auckland just to mention a few, improve their quality of life with the aid of IoT technology like green urban areas, digital control of public transport, recycling and wastewater , smart traffic lights that switch the required lane green at the coming of an ambulance in an emergency. An application of the Internet of things is eCall, used in the EU by autonomous cars to summon help automatically after an accident. These autonomous cars can also be serviced with software updates without visiting the workshop.
2. SMART HOMES
These are residential areas monitored and managed through the use of internet-connected devices. They include domestic devices like smart refrigerators, washing machines, smart lights ; LED technologies, smart locks, smart thermometers, home robots e.g robot vacuum cleaners, Google assistants for weather forecasts, news and music by voice commands, surveillance cameras, drones, AI cooking, AI television, alarm system activators e.g smoke detectors etc
3. SMART AGRICULTURE
In order to increase the quality and quantity of crops. Internet of things is applied in agriculture so that farmers can optimize labour and monitor their farms remotely from internet-connected devices. Automated smart farming allows 24/7 control of water, energy, fertilizers and accurate details of soil moisture and temperature.
4. E-HEALTH
With the latest happenings in the world about Ebola, COVID-19 , and Monkey pox. It’s not a surprise that Healthcare is the most active in the application of the Internet of things, due to the fact that healthcare delivery is now carried out with modern technologies. Services like vital sign monitoring, telemedicine, diagnosis are easily provided to patients with devices like fitness trackers, mirrors and smart watches to track health data about lifestyle, pulse, blood pressure. They can analyze the data in graphics for storage on cloud computing.
5. DIGITAL ROOM SERVICE
Some hotels have advanced in their service to customers by giving out all the information they would need on their smartphones with an option of self-ordering on an app. It takes away language misunderstandings and provides payment convenience, special discounts, tracking of orders and easy access to feedback and review. The internet of things allows hotels to track power consumption and usage so that they can save energy. The electronic keys for signing out is an example.
6. VIRTUAL VIDEO GAMES
These are not the regular video games, they allow people to socialize and interact with a 3D environment via the aid of biosensors. With data gloves and virtual reality headsets, you get a full experience with objects in the digital world. This is a new level of recreation by IoT. e.g Second life.
ONLINE ADS NETWORKS
These platforms act as a mediator between publishers and advertisers. It is the latest digital media trading market. It has the supply and demand platform which through the help of internet of things automatically match demands with a target audience, e.g Google AdSense.
7. NAVIGATION AND TRAVEL
The Internet of things has made traveling easy. Ships and airlines are able to navigate better with accurate information about the weather and other factors. Moreso, you can see anywhere on the globe while on the comfort of your bed. Activities such as booking a flight, traffic monitoring through Google maps, GPS information from the satellite are IoT applied.
Here’s a short demonstration of its application :
