Introduction to Internet of Things (IoT Basics)

-

What is IoT (Internet of Things)?

Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects or people called “things” that are embedded with software, electronics, network, and sensors that allows these objects to collect and exchange data. The goal of IoT is to extend to internet connectivity from standard devices like computer, mobile, tablet to relatively dumb devices like a toaster. 

IoT makes virtually everything “smart,” by improving aspects of our life with the power of data collection, AI algorithm, and networks. The thing in IoT can also be a person with a diabetes monitor implant, an animal with tracking devices, etc. This IoT tutorial for beginners covers all the Basics of IoT.

Internet of Things (IoT) 

In this IoT tutorial, we will learn various IoT concepts like IoT basics, IoT introduction, fundamentals of IoT, etc.

History of IoT

  • 1970- The actual idea of connected devices was proposed
  • 1990- John Romkey created a toaster which could be turned on/off over the Internet
  • 1995- Siemens introduced the first cellular module built for M2M
  • 1999- The term “Internet of Things” was used by Kevin Ashton during his work at P&G which became widely accepted
  • 2004 – The term was mentioned in famous publications like the Guardian, Boston Globe, and Scientific American
  • 2005-UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) published its first report on this topic.
  • 2008- The Internet of Things was born
  • 2011- Gartner, the market research company, include “The Internet of Things” technology in their research

How IoT works?

How IoT works
How IoT Works

The entire IoT process starts with the devices themselves like smartphones, smartwatches, electronic appliances like TV, Washing Machine which helps you to communicate with the IoT platform.

Now in this IoT tutorial, we will learn about four fundamental components of an IoT system:

1) Sensors/Devices: Sensors or devices are a key component that helps you to collect live data from the surrounding environment. All this data may have various levels of complexities. It could be a simple temperature monitoring sensor, or it may be in the form of the video feed.

A device may have various types of sensors which performs multiple tasks apart from sensing. Example, A mobile phone is a device which has multiple sensors like GPS, camera but your smartphone is not able to sense these things.

2) Connectivity: All the collected data is sent to a cloud infrastructure. The sensors should be connected to the cloud using various mediums of communications. These communication mediums include mobile or satellite networks, Bluetooth, WI-FI, WAN, etc.

3) Data Processing: Once that data is collected, and it gets to the cloud, the software performs processing on the gathered data. This process can be just checking the temperature, reading on devices like AC or heaters. However, it can sometimes also be very complex like identifying objects, using computer vision on video.

4)User Interface: The information needs to be available to the end-user in some way which can be achieved by triggering alarms on their phones or sending them notification through email or text message. The user sometimes might need an interface which actively checks their IoT system. For example, the user has a camera installed in his home. He wants to access video recording and all the feeds with the help of a web server.

However, it’s not always one-way communication. Depending on the IoT application and complexity of the system, the user may also be able to perform an action which may create cascading effects.

For example, if a user detects any changes in the temperature of the refrigerator, with the help of IoT technology the user should able to adjust the temperature with the help of their mobile phone.

 IoT Applications

Now in this IoT tutorial, we will see various IoT applications:

IoT Applications
IoT Applications

IoT solutions are widely used in numerous companies across industries. Some most common IoT applications are given below:

Application type Description
Smart Thermostats Helps you to save resource on heating bills by knowing your usage patterns.
Connected Cars IoT helps automobile companies handle billing, parking, insurance, and other related stuff automatically.
Activity Trackers Helps you to capture heart rate pattern, calorie expenditure, activity levels, and skin temperature on your wrist.
Smart Outlets Remotely turn any device on or off. It also allows you to track a device’s energy level and get custom notifications directly into your smartphone.
Parking Sensors IoT technology helps users to identify the real-time availability of parking spaces on their phone.
Connect Health The concept of a connected health care system facilitates real-time health monitoring and patient care. It helps in improved medical decision-making based on patient data.
Smart City Smart city offers all types of use cases which include traffic management to water distribution, waste management, etc.
Smart home Smart home encapsulates the connectivity inside your homes. It includes smoke detectors, home appliances, light bulbs, windows, door locks, etc.
Smart supply chain Helps you in real time tracking of goods while they are on the road, or getting suppliers to exchange inventory information.

Challenges of Internet of Things (IoT)

At present IoT is faced with many challenges, such as:

  • Insufficient testing and updating
  • Concern regarding data security and privacy
  • Software complexity
  • Data volumes and interpretation
  • Integration with AI and automation
  • Devices require a constant power supply which is difficult
  • Interaction and short-range communication

Advantages of IoT

Advantages of IoT

Key benefits of IoT technology are as follows:

  • Technical Optimization: IoT technology helps a lot in improving technologies and making them better. Example, with IoT, a manufacturer is able to collect data from various car sensors. The manufacturer analyzes them to improve its design and make them more efficient.
  • Improved Data Collection: Traditional data collection has its limitations and its design for passive use. IoT facilitates immediate action on data.
  • Reduced Waste: IoT offers real-time information leading to effective decision making & management of resources. For example, if a manufacturer finds an issue in multiple car engines, he can track the manufacturing plan of those engines and solves this issue with the manufacturing belt.
  • Improved Customer Engagement: IoT allows you to improve customer experience by detecting problems and improving the process.

Disadvantages IoT

Now, let’s see some of the disadvantages of IoT in this Internet of Things tutorial:

  • Security: IoT technology creates an ecosystem of connected devices. However, during this process, the system may offer little authentication control despite sufficient security measures.
  • Privacy: The use of IoT, exposes a substantial amount of personal data, in extreme detail, without the user’s active participation. This creates lots of privacy issues.
  • Flexibility: There is a huge concern regarding the flexibility of an IoT system. It is mainly regarding integrating with another system as there are many diverse systems involved in the process.
  • Complexity: The design of the IoT system is also quite complicated. Moreover, it’s deployment and maintenance also not very easy.
  • Compliance: IoT has its own set of rules and regulations. However, because of its complexity, the task of compliance is quite challenging.

IoT Best Practices

We will now learn about Best practices for IoT in this Internet of Things tutorial.

  • Design products for reliability and security
  • Use strong authentication and security protocols
  • Disable non-essential services
  • Ensure Internet-managed, and IoT management hubs & services are secured
  • Energy efficient algorithms should be designed for the system to be active longer.

Summary

  • Introduction to Internet of Things (IoT): The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects or people called “things” that are embedded with software, electronics, network, and sensors which allows these objects to collect and exchange data.
  • The actual idea of connected devices was proposed in 1970
  • Four Key components of IoT framework are 1) Sensors/Devices, 2) Connectivity, 3) Data Processing, 4) User Interface
  • Various applications of IoT are Smart Thermostats, Connected Cars, Activity Trackers, Smart Outlets, Connect Health, etc.
  • Technical Optimization, Improve Data Collection, Reduced Waste, Improved Customer Engagement are key benefits of IoT
  • Security, Privacy, Complexity, Compliance, are key challenges of IoT.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Post

My Printer Not Connecting

-
Image
 If you are having an issue with installing a printer or getting other issues dealing with a printer or printer setup on the computer, try this troubleshooter.  If a step doesn't apply, skip to next step  1. Turn computer off  2. Turn printer off 3. Disconnect power to printer for 2 minutes  4. Turn printer back on  5. Wait one minute  6. Make sure all connections are good  7. If your printer has both parallel and USB connectors, only have one of the two connected and not both. The USB is faster. (most new systems do not have parallel connections)  8. Turn computer back on  9. Make sure the printer has ink  10. Is the printer networked? If so is it connected to the network via computer or router. If it is connected via a computer and the computer is off, the other systems will not see it.  11. Make sure the dependencies to the print spool is started  12. Check the manufacturer of the printer to see if there is a newer driv...
Read more

RESISTOR TESTING

-
Image
1- Visual inspection: Checks for missing or any burning on resistance.   2- Using Digital Multimeter: You can check the resistor resistance by selecting the ohm range in the digital multimeter, If the resistor is in circuit, you will generally have to remove the resistor so you are testing only the resistor value and not the other components in the circuit.   Connect test probes across the two points of the resistor as shown in the photo, polarity isn’t important, value of resistance shown is 9.86 kΩ. Note: All resistors have a specific tolerance rating. The tolerance rating is marked by a color band on the end of the resistor’s body, normally the band is gold indicating 5 % tolerance. If the tolerance band is silver, then the rating is 10 %. How to test SMD Resistors: Because of the small size of SMD resistors, there is often not room for the traditional color band code to be printed on them. Therefore, new resistor SMD codes were developed. The most commonly seen codes are t...
Read more

HARDWARE TECHNICIAN

-
Image
   As a Laptop technician, you must understand a basic rule of business, time is money.      Whether you are boss or work for someone else, the ability to identify and isolate a Laptop fault quickly and decisively is very important to the success of your business. It requires some common sense, and a little bit of focus. It also requires an understanding of the troubleshooting process, and reliable plan of action. Even though the number of Laptop configuration and setups are virtually unlimited, the methodology used to approach each repair is always about the same. This introduction is intended to isolate the concepts of basic troubleshooting and show you how to apply basic laptop repair steps that will help you narrow the problem down before you even take a screwdriver to the Laptop. By applying a constant technique. You can safe precious time from every laptop repair. The General Troubleshooting Steps Regardless of how your particular Laptop might be, a depend...
Read more

INTRODUCTION TO CHIP-LEVEL TECHNOLOGY

-
Image
Chapter 1: Introduction to Chip-Level Technology     1.1 What is Chip-Level Technology?   Explanation of chip-level technology: Delving into the microscopic world of electronic components and circuits. How chip-level technicians work at the heart of devices to diagnose and repair intricate issues.  1.2 Importance of Chip-Level Expertise   Highlighting the significance of chip-level technicians in repairing complex electronic devices. Examples of devices where chip-level expertise is crucial: smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles, and more Chapter 2: Basics of Electronic Components   2.1 Understanding Electronic Components Introduction to fundamental components: resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits (ICs). How components combine to create circuits, allowing devices to function. 2.2 Role of Components in a Circuit Explanation of how each component contributes to the overall operatio...
Read more

IP Address: internet protocol

-
Image
   What is an IP address?     An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique numerical label assigned to each device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.     It serves two main functions: identifying the host or network interface and providing the location of the device in the network. Types of IP addresses:     IPv4: This is the most common type of IP address used today. It consists of four sets of numbers separated by periods (e.g., 192.168.0.1). IPv4 allows for approximately 4.3 billion unique addresses.     IPv6: With the increasing number of connected devices, IPv6 was introduced to address the depletion of IPv4 addresses. It uses eight sets of numbers separated by colons (e.g., 2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334). IPv6 provides a significantly larger address space. How IP addresses work:     When a device wants to communicate with a...
Read more

How to Hack WiFi Password: Guide to Crack Wi-Fi Network

-
What is Cybercrime? Cybercrime is defined as an unlawful action against any person using a computer, its systems, and its online or offline applications. It occurs when information technology is used to commit or cover an offense. However, the act is only considered Cybercrime if it is intentional and not accidental. In this tutorial, you will learn: What is Cybercrime? Example of Cybercrime Cybercrime Attack Types Cyber Crime Tools Example of Cybercrime Here, are some most commonly occurring Cybercrimes: The fraud did by manipulating computer network Unauthorized access to or modification of data or application Intellectual property theft that includes software piracy Industrial spying and access to or theft of computer materials Writing or spreading computer viruses or malware Digitally distributing child pornography Cybercrime Attack Types Cybercrime can attack in various ways. Here, is some most common cybercrime attack mode: Hacking: It is an act...
Read more
-
Image
j BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is an essential firmware embedded in a computer's motherboard that initializes hardware components and enables the operating system to boot. Sometimes, updating or reprogramming the BIOS becomes necessary to fix compatibility issues, add new features, or enhance system performance. This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of BIOS reprogramming, covering the necessary steps and precautions to ensure a successful update. Understand the Purpose of BIOS Reprogramming : Before proceeding with BIOS reprogramming, it's crucial to understand why you need to update or reprogram it. Common reasons include resolving hardware compatibility issues, improving system stability, fixing security vulnerabilities, enabling new features, or supporting updated hardware. Make sure to identify the specific need for reprogramming to avoid unnecessary updates that could potentially cause problems. Research and Gather Necessary Materials : Begin by re...
Read more

An Introduction to IT Chiplevel Repair: Unveiling the Inner Workings of Modern Devices

-
Image
  In the fast-paced world of technology, where devices are becoming more intricate and compact, the need for skilled professionals capable of delving into the core components of electronics has grown exponentially. Chiplevel repair and chiplevel engineering have emerged as crucial disciplines, allowing technicians to diagnose and mend devices at a microscopic level. In this article, we'll explore the fundamentals of chiplevel repair, its significance in the realm of IT, and how it contributes to the functioning of devices we rely on daily. What is Chiplevel Repair?   Chiplevel repair , often referred to as board-level repair , is a specialized field within electronics repair that focuses on identifying and resolving issues at the individual component level of a device's circuit board. Unlike traditional repair methods that involve simply replacing faulty parts, chiplevel repair involves diagnosing and fixing problems within integrated circuits, microchips, and other intricat...
Read more