2015 March Whitepaper IoT Basics Getting Started With The Internet of Things
2015 March Whitepaper IoT Basics Getting Started With The Internet of Things
Executive summary
Contents
1. Definition of IoT
2. History of IoT
3. IoT vs. similar concepts
4. Application/Segment overview
5. Technology overview
IoT Analytics
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March 2015
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2. History of IoT
The term Internet of Things is 16 years old. But the actual idea of
connected devices had been around longer, at least since the 70s. Back
then, the idea was often called embedded internet or pervasive
computing. But the actual term Internet of Things was coined by Kevin
Ashton in 1999 during his work at Procter&Gamble. Ashton who was
working in supply chain optimization, wanted to attract senior
managements attention to a new exciting technology called RFID.
Because the internet was the hottest new trend in 1999 and because it
Figure 3: Keven Ashton Inventor of the somehow made sense, he called his presentation Internet of Things.
term Internet of Things
(Source: Twitter) Even though Kevin grabbed the interest of some P&G executives, the
term Internet of Things did not get widespread attention for the next 10
years.
The same year, the Chinese government announced it would make the
Internet of Things a strategic priority in their Five-Year-Plan.
The next year the theme of Europes biggest Internet conference LeWeb
was the Internet of Things. At the same time popular tech-focused
magazines like Forbes, Fast Company, and Wired starting using IoT as
their vocabulary to describe the phenomenon.
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In October of 2013, IDC published a report stating that the Internet of
Things would be a $8.9 trillion market in 2020.
Figure 5: Google Search Trends 2011-2015 IoT vs IoE vs M2M vs Industrial Internet vs
Industry 4.0 (Source: Google)
M2M
The term Machine to Machine (M2M) has been in use for more
than a decade, and is well-known in the Telecoms sector. M2M
communication had initially been a one-to-one connection,
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linking one machine to another. But todays explosion of mobile
connectivity means that data can now be more easily
transmitted, via a system of IP networks, to a much wider range
of devices.
Web of Things
The Web of Things is much narrower in scope as the other
concepts as it solely focuses on software architecture.
Industry 4.0
The term Industry 4.0 that is strongly pushed by the German
government is as limited as the industrial internet in reach as it
only focusses on industrial environments. However, it has the
largest scope of all the concepts. Industry 4.0 describes a set of
concepts to drive the next industrial revolution. It includes all
kinds of connectivity concepts but also goes further to include
real changes to the physical world around us such as 3D-printing
technologies, new augmented reality hardware, robotics, and
advanced materials.
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4. IoT application/segment overview
To the public, IoT currently appears to be a mixture of smart home
applications, wearables and an industrial IoT component. But actually it
has the potential to have a much wider reach. When the connected
world becomes reality, the Internet of Things will transform nearly all
major segments from homes to hospitals and from cars to cities.
Most of these segments carry the name smart like Smart Home or
connected like Connected Health. Todays major applications include:
Smart home
Smart Home or Home automation describes the connectivity
inside our homes. It includes thermostats, smoke detectors,
lightbulbs, appliances, entertainment systems, windows, door
locks, and much more. Popular companies include Nest, Apple,
Philips, and Belkin.
Wearables
Whether it be the Jawbone Up, the Fitbit Flex, or the Apple
Smartwatch wearables make up a large part of the consumer
facing Internet of Things applications.
Smart City
Smart city spans a wide variety of use cases, from traffic
management to water distribution, to waste management,
urban security and environmental monitoring. Smart City
solutions promise to alleviate real pains of people living in cities
these days. Like solving traffic congestion problems, reducing
noise and pollution and helping to make cities safer.
Smart grids
A future smart grid promises to use information about the
behaviors of electricity suppliers and consumers in an
automated fashion to improve the efficiency, reliability, and
economics of electricity.
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Industrial internet
Many market researches such as Gartner or Cisco see the
industrial internet as the IoT concept with the highest overall
potential. Applications among others include smart factories or
connected industrial equipment. In 2014 GE reported roughly
$1bn revenue with Industrial Internet products.
Connected car
The battle is on for the car of the future. Whether it is self-
driving or just driver-assisted: Connectivity with other cars,
mapping services, or traffic control will play a part. Next
generation in-car entertainment systems and remote monitoring
are also interesting concepts to watch. And it is not only large
auto-makers that play a role: Google, Microsoft, and Apple have
all announced connected car platforms.
Smart retail
Proximity-based advertising, In-store shopping behavior
measurement and intelligent payment solutions are some of the
IoT concepts of Smart Retail.
Smart farming
The remoteness of farming operations and the large number of
livestock that could be monitored makes farming an interesting
case for the Internet of Things.
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5. IoT technology overview
The Internet of Things builds on three major technology layers:
Hardware (including chips and sensors), Communication (including
mostly some form of wireless network), and Software (including data
storage, analytics, and front end applications).
The reason for the Internet of Things coming up so quickly right now is
that there have been major technological advancements in all three of
these technology layers:
Hardware
Costs of sensors has declined by 54% over the last 10 years.
Moreover, form factors are shrinking quickly. Complete sensor
packages that are smaller than fingertips have become the
standard.
Communication
Mobile devices have become a commoditiy for the wider public.
At the same time the cost of bandwidth has declined by 97%
over the last 10 years.
Software
The cost of processing has even declined 98% in the same
timeframe. Moreover, a number of big data tools and big data
infrastructure such as efficient databases have emerged over
the last 5 years.
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streaming analytics engines. Each of these concepts, technologies,
and products could fill a whitepaper on their own.
If you are interested to further deep-dive into IoT, make sure to stop
by www.iot-analytics.com and check out our other whitepapers and
perspectives.
References
1. http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/business_technology/disruptive_te
chnologies
2. http://download.intel.com/newsroom/kits/embedded/pdfs/ECG_Whit
ePaper.pdf
3. http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2819918
Knud Lasse Lueth is the founder and CEO of IoT Analytics. He builds
on 5 years of strategy consulting in industrial companies at BCG and
a manufacturing background. His focus areas are the Industrial
internet and Industry 4.0
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IoT Analytics
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