In this digital era, many technologies have evolved that organizations use to make human life digital and better. One such technology is the Internet of Things, which allows organizations to make smart machines that make work easier and more effective. The Internet of Things allows organizations to make a modern telecommunication network.
It helps to connect different objects with different things, like sensors, anytime and anywhere. Though it is a very emerging technology, it poses many challenges to the organizations that use it. In this research paper, all the details of the Internet of Things, its applications, and the challenges associated with it are explained.
Table of Contents
1. What Is The Internet Of Things?
The Internet made everything easy and digital, which is helping organizations to create new technologies and applications to make work easier and effective. Everyone today uses the Internet for work. All human beings are addicted to the internet and smartphones. The Internet is used in every field, including education, business organizations, hospitals, government offices, and others. The Internet has a huge impact on human life.
The Internet of Things technology will create more importance to the Internet than today by making human life smatter and better. The Internet of Things is sometimes also termed as an intern of objects in which objects will recognise themselves and act according to the communication done with the Internet, either wired or wireless. In the Internet of Things, objects are connected to a sensor that can be activated using the Internet connection.
1.1. Importance Of IoT
Using the Internet of Things, one can communicate with the Internet at any time, at any place, and any service can be achieved. With the help of the Internet of Things, some smart machines or products are developed by organizations, such as smart vehicles, smart homes, and others. It provides different services like sending notifications, automating things, entertainment, communication, and others.
The data generated by IoT devices will be used as input to the machine learning algorithms to predict the future using analytics. Using these IoT analytics, the organizations can know how customers are responding to the advertising methods and which is attracting them to purchase the products.
1.2. Role Of IoT In Business
The IoT has more impact on business strategies and helps organizations improve their performance in the business market. The IoT devices produce large amounts of data that can be used by the organization to improve their business strategies and achieve competitive advantages. Using the Internet of Things, users and organizations are generating huge amounts of data that organisations can use to improve their business strategies and gain profitability.
These data will help organizations understand the insights of data, understand their customer preferences and lifestyles, and create new products or services to serve their consumers. Shortly, the Internet of Things will make the world smart, and every object will be connected to the Internet to make work easier and more efficient. Many IoT devices are used by users in their daily lives, such as coffee makers, alarm clocks, fixing appointments, scheduling timetables, booking a cab, and fitness trackers.
All these generate huge amounts of data for organizations that can be used to personalize their products and increase the user experience. The Internet of Things will operate in a heterogeneous environment, and the communications are done using interoperable protocols.
In the upcoming years, every work will be done using electronic devices, and interment will play a vast role with the help of the Internet of Things. Every machine or device will communicate with each other and operate automatically with less intervention from humans using the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things will said to be successfully implemented when interoperability, compatibility, reliability, and flexibility are achieved.
Today, many organizations are using the Internet of Things and making different smart products. There are different standards present to use the Internet of Things effectively, such as IEEE, IETF, ITU, and others that help organizations use the Internet of Things effectively. IEEE standards have many active standards, approximately about 900, and some are under development. It gave the early foundation to the Internet of Things with IEEE 802.15.4 standards used to develop a short-range, low-power radio.
2. Applications Of The Internet of Things
The Smart Cities:
Many smart cities were developed with the help of the Internet of Things, such as Seoul, New York, Singapore, Dubai, Tokyo, and others. Many other cities are using the Internet of Things to make their cities smarter in the future. Making a smart city requires effective planning and implementation and the support of government. Smart cities make transportation services effective, improve the infrastructure, reduce traffic congestion, and make life healthy and secure. In smart cities, people can access any data related to airports, railways, and things from anywhere and anytime.
Smart Homes And Buildings:
Homes and buildings are made smart by interconnecting all electronic devices like TVs, fridges, systems, and other electronic devices using the Internet of Things. These devices are automated with the help of internet connection over smartphones. As smartphones are used by every person, building smart homes becomes easy and effective. A smart home consists of smart security systems, fans, lights, air control, central heating, environment, and others that make human life smarter.
Smart Energy And Smart Grid:
A smart grid is used to control and manage smart energy management. This electricity network will be integrated with information and communication technologies so that suppliers and consumers have two-way communications to make energy flow better. Smart meters are used in homes to make the energy flow better and inform about energy usage to homeowners. Smart grids can also be used in other fields like solar power industries, hospitals, nuclear owners, vehicles, and others to make energy flow sustainable.
Smart Health:
Emergency and seriously conditioned patients need continuous monitoring facilities that can be provided by the smart Internet of Things monitoring systems. Using smart health sensors, doctors can collect physiological information about the patient and store it in the cloud for review later. With these smart health monitoring systems, there will be no need for doctors to check in at different intervals of time to know the condition of their patients. This will help to improve the quality of the treatment for the patient. It also reduces the billings of patients who cannot afford the treatments.
Smart Transport And Mobility:
Transportations are the means to move from one place to another. Secure transportation is required to reach the destination, which is possible with smart transportation developed using the Internet of Things. Smart transports will monitor the vehicles and alert them about the danger. It depends upon transportation analytics, controls, and vehicle connectivity. Smart transportation will show the route and notify the driver about the potholes and other dangers in the crowd.
Smart Factory And Manufacturing:
This means organizations can develop products in smart factories where the machines are interconnected with each other with the help of other technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation techniques. The smart industries are the fourth generation that helps to generate quality products safely without harming workers.
Smart Environment:
Humans need a friendly environment to live in, which can be provided by a smart environment. The Internet of Things will solve the pollution and water problems by monitoring the environment and industrial areas that produce pollution and stop them. This is a challenging task as humans spoil nature with their doings. Smart environment monitoring systems will help to monitor the weather, water, air, radiation, and pollution and help to control them before they harm. With a smart environment, one can reduce disaster consequences.
3. Challenges To The Internet of Things
Though the Internet of Things provides many opportunities for organizations and human life, it is very challenging to implement the Internet of Things and make a smart world. It is also very costly to implement the Internet of Things projects. Some of the challenges are
- Scalability: The Internet of Things is the biggest concept of the Internet as it is open to the environment. It needs many functions and methods to implement the Internet of Things projects to gain high scalability.
- Self-organizing: Smart things need not be configured by the users. Rather, they need high coding and functionality to make an object self-organizing, which will become difficult for the organizations.
- Data Volumes: The Internet of Things devices and applications need continuous communication with the Internet, and the data is stored in a central location to process effectively. The internment has a large volume of data, which will make it difficult to store, process, and manage the data.
- Data Interpretation: To act smartly and support the user with smart functionality, the Internet of Things device needs to interpret the data automatically, which needs high functionality to interpret the data accurately.
- Security And Privacy: Security is the main issue in every application connected to the internet. So, the security of the Internet of Things must be ensured by the organizations, which will be challenging to them.
4. Conclusion
The Internet and technology are having a huge impact on the preferences of the customer, and to meet those preferences and requirements, business organizations are using the Internet of Things in their business strategies to improve their performance level. Soon, the Internet of Things will be used in every technology to increase efficiency and scalability.