What is the future of connected devices holding?
In less than a month, we will be witnessing a happening of “Internet of Things World”, an international meeting for IoT professionals. It will be held in Santa Clara Convention Center, California, USA, and attracting 11,000 IoT professionals, over 250 exhibitors and startups and more. It is a great honor and pleasure to be there and have the opportunity to meet great leaders and businesses.
International Internet of Things World Expo in California
Let’s portray the full image of what is this event all about. For the last few years, we have been surrounded by a lot of information regarding Internet of Things: remote controlling every device and the common digitalization. Soon, these technologies will be available for everyone. We were used to hearing about connecting our devices to the Internet creating home automation, for example, a refrigerator. In this case, we wouldn’t spend our time on shopping because the fridge would do it for us. But still, no shopping fridges available on the market.
Unfortunately there are some limitations to this technology. Connecting “things” to the internet is still expensive. Its high starting price of input inhibits a widespread use. The creation process itself is expensive. If you calculate and add up the costs of IoT components (including hardware, infrastructure, mobile or wearable applications and certificates), you won’t arrive at a sum smaller than $ 50 thousand. Here’s how much a simple IoT project costs. In addition, many businesses are not following trends and they stay behind not being aware of the new cheaper solutions . But what are the real advantages of using IoT?
IoT: What is it useful for?
Let’s take an example of air conditioning. While you are coming home after a long day of work or maybe just a walk, how pleasurable would it be to come home and find the humidity and temperature already adjusted? This would be possible with connecting the AC device to the internet. Switch the AC on while you are outside. You can do it using a phone or another mobile device. You will be able to connect your device to a controllable object by a cloud of server applications. Any transmission channel can be used, for example, GSM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or just connecting the phone directly to the object.The phone or the tablet is mounted in the controlled device only for the time the user needs it, for example: to play with a RC (remote-controlled) toy car, a user should set the phone or the tablet up on the toy to control it remotely.
This could be realized thanks to the Digital-to-analog-converter. It does not require the control unit and its implementation can reduce the cost of producing multiple solutions such as Smart Home, robots or military devices. Effectively, controlling the devices is way cheaper by just doing it on a smartphone or a tablet.
What industries can profit form IoT?
This solution can be used for not only by the entertainment industry but also by many other branches. The agriculture industry could profit from it by leveraging IoT to remotely controlled monitor sensors that can detect soil moisture, crop growth, and livestock feed levels, so they can activate their smart connected harvesters and irrigation equipment and even analyze data collected by the program.
According to a recent research, the spendings of the entertainment industry on IoT is expected to increase nearly 54% over the next two years, to $72.6 million in 2018 from $47.2 million in 2015. Publishers and broadcasters are the ones seeking to use IoT the most. They can already construct their clients’ detailed profiles by knowing their location, behavioral, consumer-preference and demographic. Thanks to multiple electronic devices they create and instantly deliver personalized content across multiple screens.
Health care institutions could use IoT in inventory management, workflow optimization, and device integration. First, hospitals are starting to learn from retail, so the inventory management by IoT cane come in handy in areas like pharmacy and overall inventory control in warehouses. Second, the workflow optimization: by using the wireless infrastructure and tag devices such as wristbands and ID badges, hospitals can not only manage throughput but also analyze it and reduce problems. Last but not least, medical device integration can collect data and statistics on vital signs of patients. This would help in treating the patient and discovering his health problems earlier than with traditional devices.
The military industry can profit from IoT, for example for soldier healthcare. With IoT, it is easier to administer health programs, both preventive (in the home or barracks)
and on demand (in the hospital). In addition, a soldier’s wearable devices using IoT can track their health condition and alert a hospital immediately as a problem appears. It can determine when repairs should take place before breakage occurs in military vehicles. This system can make missions more reliable and secure, saving lives and resources.
The closest field to us, simple consumers, is electronics that we are going to be able to use, like smart home IoT solution or a smart office IoT ecosystem. In the case of wearable health monitoring devices, the global market for wearable’s expected to swell to 111.9 million units in 2018. Even more interesting is the “smart plug”, that provides consumers the ability to remotely control devices, even monitor energy usage, at a relatively low price point. We will also have a chance to use a microchip — smart TVs, smart home appliances, HVAC systems, and microcomputer boards.
While the price of these devices is growing, there are solutions that are cheaper and more accessible. You will be able to experience an easier way of data management thanks to our product.
Multiple problems-one answer: 4E
Software 4E invention allows controlling the devices remotely using GSM or Wi-Fi. Transmitter 4E (T4E) – is used for the communication between the smartphone and the controlled device. Thanks to the invention of T4E all the tasks related to the logical control are performed by the phone or the tablet. A smartphone or a tablet is installed as the controlled device only for the time when it is needed. Afterward, the same phone can be employed for calling or for other use cases. A controlled device does not require the usage of a microcontroller, as T4E currently provides one-way communication: System → controlled device.In conclusion, IoT World conference showed that IoT is taking over and soon the businesses will be obliged to take this technology into consideration. It can be used in pretty much every branch of business- from SmartHome, the entertainment industry, consumer goods, even to the military. Our creation- 4E makes the usage of your connected device easy and lets you profit from the newest technology. Currently, not only are we living in an era of fast changes. If we want to drive benefit, we have to keep up with it.
