By Zia Askari | ChannelDrive.in
The Internet of Things or IoT space is getting hot now and the solution provider community is ideally placed to unlock the full potential of this segment by designing communications driven solutions around IoT.
IoT is all about creating and maintaining communication lines with remote sensors in all kinds of objects and devices. It allows you to remotely understand and control the environment you are in.
Why is now the right time for the IoT to change the world? What’s been holding it back until this point?
The primary roadblock up till now was coming from the fact that there wasn’t enough cost-effective ways to connect multiple set of things and make them smart with the help of sensors – remotely and resiliently.
This scenario has changed now and today there are many ways which allow cheap sensors to be integrated inside devices and make them smart technology wonders.
Speaking during one of the conference sessions at recently concluded CommunicAsia 2015, Darren Plant, Innovation Driver, Business Unit Global services, Ericsson, said that things and places shall be first class citizens in the world of Internet.
“Monitoring and controlling real world objects will provide smartness, while meeting the needs of enterprise, people and society. The overall application domain for IoT is quite endless as there would be huge number of possibilities as we move ahead towards a connected society,” he added.
Also, today there is a lot of work being done in the areas such as security and surveillance and this is where CCTVs are becoming smart and live with high-bandwidth communications a reality now or the segment of in-car telematics. All this is creating huge opportunistic plane for IoT to be seen as a big potential area.
The emergence of new lower cost, low-power, connectivity options are changing the market dynamics for creation of IoT driven smart solutions today and India is surely set to become one of the biggest market for such an opportunity.
Speaking during CommunicAsia 2015, on the topic of securing the future of Internet of Things, Rob van den Dam, IBM Institute of Business Value said that we are at the threshold of a massive explosion in the history of computing and by the year 2050 we will exceed over 100 billion connected devices.
“The first wave of IoT is already here. It’s the Internet of Billions of Things. Moving forward, in order to be more secure and scalable, the IoT space will evolve to be more open and decentralized. A truly decentralized decentralized IoT solution will require 3 foundational functions to be supported – autonomous device coordination, secure distributed file sharing and trustless peer to peer messaging. These fundamental principles can change the model of Internet services and security,” he explained.
At this point, solution providers working in specific verticals such as BFSI, automotive, manufacturing etc can design and implement solutions around IoT that allows us to bring the right connectivity solutions for the right applications.
This means we can pull together a whole range of solutions to connect things wherever they are and whatever their data needs are. I think that’s fairly unique.
Smart Cities and IoT
As India embarks on a journey to create 100 smart cities, as announced by the government, IoT will gain prominence as more and more machines and systems will get intertwined in connectivity grids. And hence, this will give birth to more opportunities for solutions providers to come forward and design IoT driven solutions.
Some of the examples where IoT and solution providers can play a big role.
Smart Water
Water Quality
Water Leakages
River Floods
Smart Metering
Smart Grid
Tank level
Photovoltaic Installations
Water Flow
Security & Emergencies
Perimeter Access Control
Liquid Presence
Radiation Levels
Explosive and Hazardous Gases
Retail
Supply Chain Control
NFC Payment
Intelligent Shopping Applications
Smart Product Management
Logistics
Quality of Shipment Conditions
Item Location
Storage Incompatibility Detection
