Everyone is talking about the Internet of things. Where is he?

The IoT theme has been gaining increasing popularity over the past few years: in all IT-related publications you can find many articles about smart homes, connected car, wearable devices, different technologies and standards united by this topic. Information resources aimed at a wide audience are also increasingly writing about the incredible potential of the Internet of Things. Overall impression: a little more, and the spacecraft will begin to surf the universe! Market volumes are predicted, indeed, space, and sometimes the news rushes that someone somewhere within their vegetable garden seems to be refueling and is about to start in neighboring galaxies!

Over the past three years, I have participated in a large number of projects and studied many cases related to the Internet of Things, and in this article I want to try to give a detailed and accessible answer to an unrelated audience of the market to the question: “Has the future come?”

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During my work in this area I have developed several habits. One of them: to start a conversation about initiating IoT with unfamiliar people with a description of what it is, preferably with examples.

So, IoT (Internet of Things, Internet of Things) is a term commonly used to call a number of technologies, devices, platforms and applications in one way or another connected with the connection of these devices to the network. This can be either a connection to the network of already existing and long-used devices, or completely new ones, which did not exist before the advent of network connectivity. For example, household appliances can be attributed to the first group: people have been using light bulbs, refrigerators and coffee makers for many years, but with the advent of the ability to connect them to the network, a number of new possibilities open up for these familiar devices. The second group implies devices that, in general, are not needed without the ability to connect them to the network, for example, various types of trackers that transmit data to a common center (or at least a smartphone) for processing.

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You can fantasize a great number of examples to describe what the Internet of things, and at some point these fantasies any sane person should be about an idea: "In principle, you can connect to the network, all four legs of the stool and sidushku, but why?"

Indeed as marketing tells us, any new technology, in order to be in demand and someone was willing to pay for it, must solve some problem. Upper-level, IoT can carry three values: economic (gaining additional income or reducing costs), access to data (this is a new value, not yet fully understood) and some functionality that solves certain user problems.

To understand, I will describe the case for each value:

  1. Since the economic value is the most common, I will give the most beaten classic example. The management company of the apartment building pays the bill from the sales company, which is formed according to data from the general household meter. She bills the residents in accordance with the data they transmitted from their counters in the apartment. In most houses in Moscow, residents themselves must manually transfer this data every month, but far from all do so. And then not all 100% of the tenants pay the invoices. Accordingly, the management company pays for this difference between the general meter and the sum of all the testimony given to the residents. In its interest to maximize the collection of data from the meters in the apartments. If these meters are connected to the network and will transmit the data themselves, without the participation of residents, then the collection rate will be close to 100%, and the difference between how much the management company collected and how many people counted the house meter will tend to the minimum. Thus, depending on the situation of each specific management company, connecting the meters to the network allows one way or another to reduce costs.
  2. Access to data can also affect income or expenses, and can help make certain decisions. The data may speak about a specific user, and may be about groups united by some common feature. They can give a more detailed picture of the detailed situation, and can help to make predictions. Data analysis is more about the Big Data area, but IoT is directly related to the collection. As an example of what additional value carries the ability to receive data from connected devices, you can describe a certain company that processes data from trackers in cars. As a rule, the purpose of collecting data from them is to obtain information about specific cars: their location, state of the aggregates, driving style, etc. The direct customer will pay for this data to such a company. But processing this data for it, our hypothetical company stores them and can analyze. This means that in addition to processing data from trackers directly for the customer, this company can provide analytics services either by providing this data already impersonal in raw form, or in the form of some kind of analysis. For example, to assess the need to change the traffic pattern in some place. And these services can cost almost more than, it would seem, the main activity in providing data on specific machines to end customers. or in the form of some kind of analysis. For example, to assess the need to change the traffic pattern in some place. And these services can cost almost more than, it would seem, the main activity in providing data on specific machines to end customers. or in the form of some kind of analysis. For example, to assess the need to change the traffic pattern in some place. And these services can cost almost more than, it would seem, the main activity in providing data on specific machines to end customers.
  3. The latter category, as a rule, carries value only for end users. Basically, this is some kind of additional functionality, such as remotely starting the engine or turning on an outlet with a heater in the country, which simply carries the convenience for which some are willing to pay.

All these values ​​are united by one detail: they cease to be valuable if the cost of the service is too high. This is one of the main problems of this market today. How much are you willing to pay for the connection of all household appliances to the network, given that the resulting savings in water and electricity, as well as convenience in the home will not be too noticeable? I am sure everyone will have their own answer to this question, but in 90% of cases this value will be noticeably less than the cost of installation and maintenance of the entire system. This means that either technologies must emerge that will lead to cheaper prices, or the value should become so great as to outweigh the cost.

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For each field of application of the Internet of Things, the cost of integration and the benefits obtained intersect at different time points. Somewhere they have already intersected, but for the convergence of the case, large initial investments are required to use existing technologies for which no one has the courage of Ilona Mask or Amazon. In some places this moment has already arrived, and things connected to the network have been helping us for a long time. Some of these examples look pretty ordinary and do not cause a “wow effect”, as in a case with counters. Other examples are simply invisible to the general public, unrelated to the industry (for example, logistics companies and trackers used by them). We simply got used to some things and treat them as normal (for example, security systems of cars, houses, etc.).

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A huge number of technologies never took off. That same “Smart Home” constantly starts selling one, then another company, everyone is afraid to “oversleep” the moment when people suddenly catch fire on this service en masse. But so far, it seems, for him is not the time.

Other technologies are about to appear. High hopes are placed on "energy-saving" data transmission technologies and the development of autonomous power systems. Many automakers and IT companies are actively working in the direction of unmanned vehicles. On the part of state bodies of different countries there is a mass of requests for various things, ranging from banal video cameras with various sensors, to flashlights, sensors in the soil and personal medical devices.

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No one can say right now when this “future” will come. This applies to all existing and emerging technologies. Each new development could potentially “blow up” the market, or it may go unnoticed. Many will simply occupy their niche (some initially claim this). But gradually, step by step, our daily life is already changing, and for quite some time. This does not happen in one day and not in one year, because no one can say at what particular moment we began to call strangers through the Internet without a second thought and get into their car. Gradually, our streets will be filled with unmanned vehicles, cities will be covered with a network of cameras, parking sensors and speeds, animals and suitcases will be microchipped, and we will buy fitness trackers ourselves so as not to finally increase the sofa, without rising from which

The main thing is to have time to take your place in this wondrous new sofa .

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