My Internet of Things Journey
What is IoT ?
So anyone who tells you they are an Expert when it comes to IoT are either flat out deceiving you or they are crazy. The subject has gotten so massive that it's nearly impossible to master it completely. I am on a journey to learn as much about this interesting subject as I can. I plan to document this journey, not only for your benefit, but so i have a reference to fall back upon.
Let's start by trying to define the Internet of Things. If you do a search you get about as many definitions as there are beers on the wall. Everything from the super geek definition I found on Wikipedia to asking my not so techy friend over a beer. According to Wikipedia, IoT is the inter-networking of physical devices embedded with sensors, software and connectivity which enables these devices to collect and exchange data. This is an excerpt from Wikipedia, but I think it hits the nail on the head. It’s a bunch of devices that can sense their surroundings, process the information, and share that information with the world. It’s not a coincidence that data is in this definition. Data is the key. The devices collect and act on their surroundings, but it’s the data they generate that’s important. So, think of the sensor I have sitting on my lanai collecting temperature and humidity. Sounds lame, but if you take that data and send it to a Weather service, now we have a weather station reporting real time data and saving that data to help in forecasting. Now suddenly, my temperature sensor is now an IoT device. Now my device is helping my neighbors decide how hot it may get this week. That’s because I have been collecting data for months and we can analyze the data and make predictions. See, the data is the key.
So now we have the official definition, here is my interpretation. In my opinion, IoT should be defined as the IO part and the Things part.The IO part is the input and output. It’s the exchange and collection of data from a device. It’s my distance sensor telling me when I am going to hit the curb while parking the car. It’s the sensor on the board collecting data. It’s the WiFi chip sending that data to the cloud. The Things part is my temperature sensor, it’s a GPS collar on Daisy the farm cow telling me when she is in a family way, it’s a PH sensor alerting someone the PH is too high out on the farm. If you start thinking about it, Things that share data are all around us. They are even creeping into our kitchen. Who knew that my refrigerator could talk to me? What does it have to say, and how can I use that information. Well, it tells me I need to go buy milk and eggs. It has a sensor that sees when things are missing and acts on that information. It collects and processes. Suddenly my refrigerator is a Smart Device! A device that collects and forwards data to be analyzed and acted upon.
So how long have these IO things been around? I think it’s interesting to know they have been around longer than you think. The concept of a smart device has been around since 1982. A modified Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University was the first connected appliance able to report its inventory and whether the newly loaded drinks were cold. Between 1993 and 1996 we saw solutions like Microsoft’s at Work and Novell’s Nest. If you search you will find many other examples of the first IoT device, I just think this one is more real life.
This is my attempt in this journey to define this gargantuan subject we call Internet of Things. I think this groundwork is important in order to move forward in my exploration of IoT. In my next post i will discuss the architecture, the common protocols used, and how we communicate with these devices. I am planning a series of posts explaining not only the topics i am going to cover, but how IoT is managed in Azure. I also just received the Microsoft MXChip IoT DevKit. Microsoft's elegant answer to learning IoT development.
Stay tuned..............