What is the Internet of Things?
Among the various lockdown viewing options offered by Netflix isa series of animated short stories called "Love, Death andRobots", which span a breath of genres, from comedy, horror toSci-Fi and fantasy. The second series features one called"Automated Customer Service" – a darkly comedicepisode, which imagines a dystopian future where virtually allhuman roles, from housekeeping and gardening to lifeguards, havebeen replaced by artificial intelligence. This episode demonstratesthe danger of such dependency on robots (and inept automatedcustomer services), when a hapless householder triggers"intruder" mode in her housekeeping robot, leading to amurderous chase. Away from the cautionary tales of AI, thisanimated short neatly encapsulates the Internet of Things (IoT)– a series of interconnected objects embedded with sensorsand software, each communicating with others over the Internet,relaying and reacting to continually changing information. So muchof IOT will already be familiar to us, from smart sensors in ourhomes (such as Samsung's SmartThings), allowing us to remotelyadjust the thermostat and check who is at the door, to the wearabletech which is continually monitoring our every heartbeat andactivity level.
IOT describes a series of objects, connected over Wi-Fi in aclosed network, generating and sharing data, in an increasingconnected world. A huge network of interconnected"things". One of the most famous examples is Amazon'sAlexa, a cloud based voice activated, virtual assistant, capable ofplaying your favourite album, giving you weather and news updates,ordering your groceries and controlling your "smart"home. The interconnectedness of the smart home can go even further– to a fridge which can control the stock levels (alongsidean oven which relays which produce has been cooked and when, asmart kettle and toaster) and sense the "use by dates" ofthe produce in it (and potentially order in more), to one whichmonitors and regulates the levels of natural and artificial lightin each room, according to the wishes of the occupants.
Away from residential use, IOT is transforming the industriallandscape as smart sensors on production lines, feedback everythingfrom the speed of assembly to temperature, whilst the wirelessinventory tracks the stock levels of components and allowsmanufacturers to slim wastage and increase the efficiency ofproduction in these smart factories. One study found 35% ofmanufacturers in the USA had already adopted smart sensors on theirproduction lines
1
. Smart farms are using autonomous farmequipment, such as drones to spray and harvest crops, whilstsensors are deployed to monitor everything from soil pH to humiditylevels. These tools allow farmers a holistic view of what ishappening on the farm and the growing conditions their crops areexperiencing, permitting strategic decision making, without everhaving to venture into the fields.
The challenges
The prediction for the future appears to be "
anythingthat can be connected will be
"
2
but with itcomes a huge challenge to the privacy of those caught in thisinter-connected digital world. There are clear and obvious issueswith tracking and monitoring everything, from where someone goes totheir biometric data – in essence, creating a modern-erapanopticon, where everyone is under some form of surveillance.Security also remains one of the foremost challenges to the everexpanding IOT.
Anything connected to a network is vulnerable to being hacked.While the killer robot of
Love, Death and Robots
, seemsfar-fetched, more plausible scenarios including hackers accessingsmart systems to gain data, including sensitive personal data,generated by them. More mundane issues with IOT include a lack ofinteroperability and variation of the common technical standards,meaning a lack of integration between different technicalecosystems and the sheer (potentially unsustainable) amount ofenergy required to power them.
Either way, the IOT is here to stay.
Footnotes
1.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/internet-of-things-what-is-explained-iot
2.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2014/05/13/simple-explanation-internet-things-that-anyone-can-understand/?sh=2b1a58a61d09
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