Neil Gross predicted in 1999 – “In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the internet as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations”.
Internet of things, IoT in short is slowly gaining momentum across various spheres of our life. What is IoT? It is the scenario where people, objects, animals and even plants are given a unique identifier to transmit data over a network without requiring human interaction – either human to human or human to computer. Example: Imagine your street dustbin sending message to your municipal office that it is full and needs to be cleaned without any intervention from you.
Sounds Interesting? IoT is a reality happening around us. We have sensors to check our activity levels and suggest workouts, heat/cool our homes effectively, avoid disasters by alerting discrepancies, maintain and repair equipments, sensing customers’ engagement with specific product at stores, maintain quality at assembly lines, track/protect wildlife, etc.
Oh! yes, now you know IoT is nothing new, you are seeing some of them in your everyday life. Then you wonder, why all this hype? The hype arises because till now, these sensors are stand-alone applications doing their work. Now the talk is progressing to connect them all under a single umbrella. So how is it going to affect our everyday life?
The traffic on your route and weather conditions will determine your alarm wake up time. Your fridge will determine if you are low on items and order them from your stores. Your car will interact with your heating/cooling systems at home when you start from office and keep the house at the right temperature for you; your electrical appliances will shut down automatically when your door is locked, etc.
A lot of life saving and profitable concepts are appearing but the question arise about the safety of the internet of things. Addressing some of the below customer concerns would help in the progress.
Secure Products: Building secure products at the onset rather than as an afterthought.
Privacy Assurances: Transparency about how the consumer information might be used and allowing consumers to have some control
Consistent Standards: IoT device can use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc but using a standard method for these technologies to interact with one another
Inherent Value-Add to Consumers: A product made due to the value it adds to the consumer rather than the idea being novel will help in easy acceptance of the product.
Ensure Best Practices: Educating the consumer gets educated on the security best practices will go a long way in easing the worries.
