The Industrial Revolution 2? The IOT is coming for us.
Imagine a world where we can control everything, from the kettle to locking our door, simply by the touch of a smartphone. A world where cars that drive (and deliver items) themselves know when to slow down if a road is iced over. A world where we know our children are safe by checking their location on a fitness tracker. A world where the streets themselves put salt onto the road the instant it starts snowing and gardens tend themselves. A world where machines and sensors collect all our data and use it to make our lives more efficient.
This Smart-World you are imagining isn’t as far-fetched as you might think. It all starts with smart appliances, then smart homes, then smart streets, then smart buildings and then smart cities. What’s next? Wall-e coming true?
The ‘Smart’ future is simply a vision, but the process has already started. The first internet connected device made was a toaster in 1990 by John Romkey and now plenty of ‘smart’ appliances are sold on the market. We today are alive to see the rise of the IOT, but hopefully not long enough to see the machines take over the world.
Some IOT devices you may already know include:
Fitness trackers
Drones
Self-driving cars (googles self-driving car has just recently had a huge legal breakthrough)
Internet connected coffee makers
“The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects—devices, vehicles, buildings and other items which are embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data.” – Wikipedia.
A lot of people are certain that this is going to be massive in the future; there are already known stakeholders and there are even courses designed for creating new IOT products. It is predicted in a new report from BI intelligence that $6 trillion will be spent on IOT devices over the next 5 years and over 24 billion IOT devices will be connected to the internet by 2020.
Many Benefits are introduced with this revolution. I mean who wouldn’t like to have your coffee made in the morning by the time you enter your kitchen? Or your car heated up and ready for you to leave to work on a freezing winters day? Yes our lives are certainly going to become easier, more efficient and even save us money too. For example a smart thermostat could sense if you are out of the house and lower the heating. An oven could turn itself off if not in use.
A future vision even could save people’s lives. What if sensors on a road could tell your car what condition the road is in? It could be far too slippery for the speed you were traveling at, recommend the best speed, and thus save precious lives.
Of course, there is always going to be some negatives with new inventions. Nothing and no one in the world is perfect. One of the biggest flaws is the security risk around the devices. Fitness trackers today are known to have poor security so hackers could gather data on your health and sleeping times. It’s not out of the question to consider burglars using this information for their next score. Of course another negative of the IOT is the rise of the machines.
I don’t know about you but the industrial revolution 2 blows my mind. When the machines start to rise and our everyday household items start to move and turn against us and finally have rule of the world then don’t say I didn’t warn you.