The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term that is being used everywhere. It is a topic of social, economic, and technical significance, and should not be taken lightly. It has the power to transform the way we live our lives and work with inanimate objects. Be it durable goods, vehicles, consumer products, utility components, or other everyday objects, everything will be connected to the internet to improve performance through powerful data analytic capabilities.
With everything connected to the internet and automated with strong data analytics, there will be an acute rise in business activities in this domain. Many popular businesses will adapt to it and gain commendable business growth. IoT will bring all kinds of benefits including reduction of operating costs, understanding customer behavior, improvement of productivity and efficiency, and information required to enhance customer experience and bolster workplace safety.
Even the projections related to the impact of IoT (internet of things) on the economy are pretty impressive and some of these anticipate over 100 billion IoT devices causing an impact exceeding $11 trillion by the year 2025. Interested? Let’s talk about how IoT (internet of things) will impact our lives for the better.
Smart Homes for Smarter Lifestyle
IoT (internet of things) will definitely bring advancement in the lifestyle of the people through smart homes. Much of it has already been demonstrated in Google Smart Home and many people are already aware of it. To put it concisely, from doors and windows to common home appliances, everything will be easily controlled by mere voice commands. People will also be allowed to control these devices through gestures and preloaded schedules.
Everything will be made easier through voice-enabled home appliances and people will be updated about the performance of their devices through timely alerts for malfunctioning or broken items. Automatic ordering for groceries and food products will be enabled and there will be child safety applications for parents working remotely. Energy consumption will also be monitored through sensors connected to smartphones. This will allow people to save energy and ensure optimal energy consumption for all their home devices. Since everything will be connected to the internet, the concerns of privacy and security will become even more crucial and this is precisely where we will need VPNs and firewalls.
IoT in the Retail Industry
As mentioned before, with everything connected to the internet, numerous service-providing companies will have access to the data of their subscribers. This data will be used in everything from enhancing customer experience to generating new revenue models. IoT will bring many benefits to retail businesses and they will be able to leverage it for their commercial success.
Not only will the intelligent IoT (internet of things) applications collect precious data on the clients, they will also help customers in navigating through the stores and advise them of the best deals offered in a retail outlet. These applications will help customers in saving their time and assist them in checkout without spending excessive time at the cash counters.
While the IoT (internet of things) gadgets will be helping customers with their shopping and gathering information on their preferences, they will further help the stores in identifying their customer preferences and shopping habits. This will improve the ad targeting and relevant deals will be shown only to the interested people. Apart from ads, the demand-aware inventory management system will send alerts to the store managers about low stock levels, products getting expired and assist with SKU tracking.
Cheaper & Optimized Manufacturing
IoT will assist manufacturing organizations to boost production efficiency by optimizing the performance of their machinery for effective cost reduction. Bigger machines will have all the sensors at the right places that will help companies auto-diagnose the low-performance symptoms. Through timely alerts, the maintenance staff will be able to take proactive actions and not only enhance the production levels but also increase the life of the machinery.
The indoor assets can be quickly tracked and easily located through the RFID/NFC-based tags. The machine-to-machine communication will make way to accurate preventive maintenance of devices whose regular use may cause unavoidable wear and tear. Key performance metrics such as pressure, temperature, and volume will be monitored easily and their records will be transmitted to the concerned parties.
Transformation in Healthcare
IoT will help hospitals in providing better healthcare to patients who can’t come to the hospitals or medical practices. Through improved electronics, medical professionals will be able to monitor the pulse or vital health stats of patients. Wearable medical equipment and other similar devices that will be connected to the internet will play a major role here.
Doctors will be able to monitor elderly patients remotely through useful data streamed through convenient wearable devices such as wristwatches, biometric t-shirts, bracelets, rings, etc. Remote gathering of patient data such as blood sugar, pulse rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, etc. will be possible. Fitness gadgets will perform better and easily measure the daily activity of individuals. The health data collected will then be easily crunched into easy charts and infographics displaying calories burnt or any achieved fitness goals.
These devices will also help in tracking and will keep both hospitals and patients updated. On a simple call, the hospital ambulances will know the precise location of the patient and the patient will also be able to track the ambulances coming their way. Similarly, the doctors in the hospitals will be able to track medical equipment through Bluetooth low energy (BLE) enabled devices. Blood donors or organ donors can also be located this way. This technology will also help in the advanced tracking and authentication of drugs and prevent the production of counterfeits.
Enhanced Business Workflows
IoT devices can already be found at some of the more advanced business workplaces. These devices are at the entrances to track people entering and leaving business premises. The data collected is used to enhance the business workflow and tighten the loose ends at compromised areas.
There are devices that are being used to track employee productivity at the offices. These applications can easily be set up anywhere and can send real-time information to employers. While this does raise concerns related to privacy and trust at workplaces, it can play an instrumental part in the work from home scenarios.
Looking into the future, the IoT will definitely enable automated calendar scheduling that will help businesses organize teams better. The intelligent applications will allow interactive virtual collaboration between remote teams operating from different locations and allow them to perform like they are working from a single workplace.
Ending Words
These were the five most impactful ways IoT will be changing our lives in the future. As more and more IoT devices are being made and the development of technology is taking huge strides in advancement, we can expect the IoT to take interesting directions in the future.
