IoT – or Internet of Things revolves around machine-to-machine communication.
It’s devices and things with a network of data-gathering sensors and software that allows these items to connect and exchange various data. It’s your smart phone being used as a controller for your Just Dance game, or your conversations being used to show you relevant ads.
IoT is already a rather big deal, but did you know that it’s estimated that by 2020 the Internet of Things will consist of about 30 billion objects. Even objects like streetlights and seaports will become “smart.” There are also many “smart” objects. Your “smart” phone, sensors in cameras, lights, cars etc.
IoT as it relates to phones has helped expand the market for products, online shopping is at an all time high and with that people compete to offer the best prices and perks to keep customers around. People can do more things now than ever with products that are connected online and make practically everything easier.
Computer codes in your car to tell another device what’s wrong? Check! Push buttons that let you reorder things directly from Amazon? Check! It can be used to reduce downtime, increase productivity, connect workers and secure factories as well. It’s not just for use in making phones and household appliances smarter.
IoT helps your apps tell their makers what works as promotions and what doesn’t, it lets them know how often you play in the case of games and what choices you make in them. Other apps work similarly, telling developers what users are doing and helping them learn what incentives to use to keep people coming back.
Another method for gathering user data is ad-hoc reporting. While there is nothing wrong with this method, it can take a lot of time and effort to gain the data necessary and takes away from the time developers, designers and companies have to put towards making their products better for the end-user. Still some like ad-hoc reporting and enjoy being able to make use of it themselves. This makes self-service reporting a good option, it allows users to make strategic decisions with real-time data from applications.
IoT has already changed our lives in many ways. I can tell Siri who to text while I am driving, you can ask Alexa to schedule something on your phone, check the weather, turn on music, and more. It’s not just our homes and devices that are getting smarter, it’s the world around us that is getting more high tech and involved with the wonders of machine-to-machine communication thanks to the Internet of Things.
What other examples can you think of on how IoT affects your daily life?
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