I’ve been hearing a lot about the internet of things and wanted to understand what that meant, in my parlance that means, I wanted to write a blog entry about it. My IT support company, Sinu beat me to it with a blog entry on the Internet of Things, aka IoT:
Sinu defines IoT as follows: “So what is the Internet of Things (IoT)? Techopedia does a good job of explaining it: “Most of us think about being connected in terms of computers, tablets and smartphones. IoT describes a world where just about anything can be connected and communicate in an intelligent fashion. In other words, with the Internet of Things, the physical world is becoming one big information system.” IoT includes anything connected to the Internet, such as cars, refrigerators, shoes, and other things we cannot even imagine yet.”
The internet of things is the Fitbit we wear on our wrists, or the Garmin on our bikes – or, for the less sporty – or anybody outside of Manhattan – the GPS on their car’s dashboard, and the car itself. But what I really want to see are things in my life connected to the internet like heater and A/C, refrigerator, lights, alarm… I travel a lot and it would be phenomenal to turn down the heat even further and then give it a boost a few hours before you come home without having to inconvenience a neighbor. How about my carpet telling me if it was properly vacuumed (can you tell I’m having housekeeper issues- again)? Forgot to turn the fridge to vacation mode? No prob: do it from the road. These are all fairly simple technological advances that exist (at a price), but are not mainstream yet – and frankly, I can’t wait. I also can’t wait for the NSA (or whatever other government entity) drowning in THAT information – talking about Big Data. Big completely useless Data – then again: might be helpful to know when someone comes home because they turned on the A/C to a high setting…
Cool things I have been able to do thanks to the IoT are ordering my groceries on my phone from my bed in Switzerland the night before I flew back to New York – cloud shopping (nothing new), but it was kinda cool that it worked from my phone on a Swiss cell phone carrier’s WiFi network. Or my Slingbox that lets me watch my home TV life as well as any TiVo recorded programming.
Were it gets much more interesting is: what are the unknown unknowns… what do you think will be the future of the IoT? What are your wildest phantasies? I still am dreaming of a jetpack…