The things of the internet

The Internet of things is what next will determine the new way on how we interact with technology, it’s the result of how small we have made our transistors to pack more into less. Technology the last nineteen years has allowed a way for devices to interact with one another and connect us like never before to the point anyone can reach in their pocket to talk to anyone in the world. How information is transferred today has impacted how the world works on a massive scale and now the next phase of having electronic circuitry becoming smaller has paved the way for more incorporation of electronics and has the allowed for small computer systems to make one big controllable ecosystem whether the tasks are small or big, home or industrial. This post covers what IoT is all about and some of the products out there, how IoT will shape the future and what present concerns there are for this new era of technology incorporation as well as how we got to the present day with the ARM platform leading the way for embedded devices to become powerful enough to handle these tasks and more.

IoT stands for the Internet Of Things and it all is about how electronic devices can connect to the internet and thus with one another. An example of an IoT device would be the Amazon smart plug, it can connect to the internet to be used to remotely disable power to another plug-in device such as a lamp. While hopefully, the future will seem more transparent with technology what matters is the current state of it today, even though the smart plug only disables power to an outlet on top of one it is the fact there is a computer in there that can remotely handle the task. Another project that is a bit of a bigger task would be getting smart LED bulbs throughout the house to change all light colors to be the same in the house. IoT can also have interfaces to work with non-technical people, a good example with be the Nest smart thermostat made for the average consumer. IKEA recently just launched a line of products that are controllable via a smartphone, one of which is a table lamp with a built-in speaker, revolutionary. That’s what IoT is all about, fitting smaller technology to extend what technology can do for us other than big tasks. What we have in today’s industry is worth mentioning as it will be the foreground for this new chapter in technology smart locks, security systems, smart microwave and medical devices such as a pacemaker. Brands have even established themselves to lead the industry paving the way for advancements via demand as the sector grows. The advances in embedded systems have allowed us to fit more than a simple CPU on a small platform but even more such as chips for processing graphics, processing sensors, and wireless communication which will lead to ways for these devices to connect remotely and to handle bigger things than thought possible. Cisco has built a whole factory that requires embedded systems to help monitor and control machines for the assembly of products. Some common boards today used for IoT DIY projects are the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and Beagle-bone. Many more embedded systems are being worked on and while there has yet to be a standard for them, one is in the works to unify how these devices will work with each other in the future but the potential for the way they can connect and extend the ability of products will be life-changing.

The future of IoT has a lot of potential to minimize tasks and improve people’s lives but with any new emerging technology, there are risks. Security researchers have questioned the security of the devices already out on the market and with more objects being integrated with computers, more data can be collected on someone and used against them. Researchers are worried mainly by hacking and the public profile this can create based on this large set of data that can be generated on all these devices, this data could be used to analyze you or even worse the devices themselves could be hacked to physically track and see you. There is a lot of trust to put into these devices that will constantly surround us. This will only lead to dissatisfaction among customers in the future when there is more adoption. Companies making IoT products need to focus on device security and networking so their products aren’t vulnerable. The market is at a pivotal time as the IoT sector alone is expected to grow, “a market with a valuation of USD 2,108.2 Billion by 2023” — (https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/internet-of-things-iot-market-size-share-analysis-emerging-technologies-growth-trends-forecast-upto-2025-2019-07-12). Now is an important growth time for the IoT market and a single smear for any manufacturer can be a blow to the growth and trust for the entire industry. Many of the devices today will still exist in the future but with more functionality and connectivity, for instance, smart fridges are being made with sensors and built-in machine learning, some can track the expiration for food and even order replacement ingredients from grocery delivering services right away. Utilities are a big resource commonly used today but in the rare instances say am AC is running when you aren’t home, that utility costs money especially when not in use and without being there nothing can be done. Enter a smart thermostat that can not only alert you remotely but you can deactivate it as well, set schedules for when to not run it, change the temperature to be price efficient and a lot more features as hardware and software advance as the industry grows. IoT offers a lot of ways to automate things and the ability to interact with things like never before. While today it may not be the most secure platform, technology is ever-changing and with the right players involved IoT devices will become more secure and geared more towards the user’s privacy and safety and be able to prove their use.

Embedded systems already have a lot of computing power and people are now widening what is next that these machines do? Today there are already devices being worked so small it can fit in the body and travel through, it can be a contact lenses that help people see, electronics are becoming smaller and the same size device made in two years could have double the processing power of today. The future will hold devices that are either smaller or powerful and how this all kickstarted to today is by a very powerful yet light architecture called ARM “With over 100 billion ARM processors produced as of 2017, ARM is the most widely used instruction set architecture and the instruction set architecture produced in the largest quantity.” — (Wikipedia, 2020). ARM has been used in Cell phones ever since we started adding the word smart to them. Every iPhone and Android phone is powered by an ARM designed chip and works with the same architecture. It’s this industry that started small itself in the ’80s to growing modernly in the ’90s through to present day being one of the biggest electronic platforms out there, it is a clear example of how a technology industry can grow just as IOT has the potential to as well. This specific architecture is important because it’s not used in phones it’s being used in the next set of micro-computers and its growth is what has allowed these small devices to become even powerful and to hold more with less. The future of arm looks bright as chips as in this year 2020 the first set of 5nm Mae chips will be arm and even rumors are companies switching their main computers away from intel are taking place and yet with more wide adoption the more secure and well developed this industry will become to bring it chips the size of an ant to devices to handle even bigger tasks at scale and will allow the future the possibility of having robots that can make hard decisions at a scale that cannot even be seen with the human eye.

In conclusion, while today these devices are becoming very powerful and can show their capability, their security and privacy issues are a handicap to their growth and until some of the bigger players such as Apple, Google and Amazon show how their devices and or services will be secure to the end-user. There won’t be any reason for it to have a wide adoption until people see the benefits of automation when these devices become cheaper for the average consumer unless you’re into DIY electronics it’ll take time to see these devices in everything as like any new industry it will need time for the cost of these devices to go down and capability to grow before they will circle with adoption among people once that time comes around 2023 we could see real progress be put back into these devices and the responses from consumers will lead to their improvement.

references:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZEEFNX/ref=ods_gw_vicc_ASP_MarEG?pf_rd_r=GCJZAV6V1NFN01MJQR7C&pf_rd_p=943fe6b6-5aa1-4356-bc90-13d0b783f997&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Microwave-Small-Works-Alexa/dp/B07894S727/ref=pd_rhf_dp_p_img_1?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=GWHSP3099F3HFJ3RNYPG&th=1
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/internet-of-things-iot-market-size-share-analysis-emerging-technologies-growth-trends-forecast-upto-2025-2019-07-12
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture