Internet of Things | Everything You Need to Know
Internet of Things (IoT) – Internet of Things in German – is the digital trend par excellence. Whether with smart LED lamps or the tracking of parcels, information is collected by sensors, which is shared and evaluated over the Internet in a network, for example in order to make certain automated decisions.
The IoT objects involved are often assigned their own intelligence. There are estimates that assume that around 30 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2023, with around 20 billion of these devices being IoT objects.
What is the definition of Internet of Things?
Internet of Things (IoT) is the English term for the Internet of Things (IoT). The Internet of Things definition is briefly: Networking physical and virtual objects via the Internet. The difference to the normal Internet is that in the IoT it is not human participants or their computers that are networked with each other, but things, i.e. physical or virtual objects.
But what does the Internet of Things mean in terms of the technical possibilities that it opens up? Basically, the Internet of Things is about information from the real world being automatically linked and available in a network. This can be, for example, status information such as the question of whether it is light or dark or whether it is cold or warm. This information can then be used to bring about an automatic change in the status. It is possible to illuminate a dark room by switching on a light or to warm the cold air in a room by switching on a heater.
With the Internet of Things, sensors take over the collection of the necessary information from the environment, which is then responded to accordingly. In terms of its importance, the Internet of Things can primarily be viewed as an aid to improve or at least change certain situations.
Internet of Things story
The term Internet of Things is said to go back to technology pioneer Kevin Ashton, who is said to have created an RFID standard at the Auto-ID Center of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ashton used the term Internet of Things for the first time in 1999. The activities at the Auto-ID Center are said to have made the idea of the Internet of Things known, whereby the RFID chip, which enables objects to be automatically identified, is often viewed as the basis of the IoT.
The Internet of Things story actually goes back even further. A vision of objects equipped with sensors that fit into their surroundings was already formulated in an essay from 1991 entitled “The Computer for the 21st Century” by the scientist Mark Weiser. He called this vision “Ubiquitous Computing”, which means something like ubiquitous computer-aided information processing.
Application examples from the Internet of Things
The question arises, what is the Internet of Things when you look at it through examples. The following application examples from the Internet of Things are among others:
- Automatic reordering of printer cartridges by monitoring the cartridge level
- Tracking of parcels, for example, by scanning barcodes
- Lighting systems; In the smart home area, the Internet of Things includes intelligent LED lamps
- Measurement of toxic gases and automatic countermeasures when limit values are exceeded
As you can see, these examples of the Internet of Things not only describe products, but actually processes and services. At the service level, the Internet of Things offerings are also known as Smart Services. Because the respective objects are usually assigned intelligent properties when they collect data through sensors, on the basis of which decisions are made, which is actually only known from intelligent beings like humans.
In the field of industry, areas in which processes are introduced via the Internet of Things are also referred to as Industry 4.0. You could also call it the industrial Internet of Things. This term is used to express the interlinking of industrial production and modern IT technology, i.e. in particular the connection between industrial production and digital networks made up of intelligent objects.
The Internet of Things in Industry 4.0 promises the possibility of optimizing the entire value chain instead of being limited to individual production steps when optimizing, as well as the self-organization of production. The designation 4.0 is intended to express that this would be the fourth industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution took place thanks to steam power, the second thanks to the introduction of the assembly line and the third thanks to digitalization with the help of electronics and IT technology.
Examples of the Internet of Things in the field of Industry 4.0 include the following:
- Automatic warehouse management, in which a reorder of the respective product is automatically triggered by the system in the event of low stocks
- Automatic production adjustments if special requests are made when ordering a product, such as a sunroof on a car
- Automatic maintenance monitoring
IoT security
But are the Internet of Things applications also safe? One problem is the relationship between the Internet of Things and data protection. Because the IoT devices collect information from their users. The whole thing becomes problematic in terms of data protection law, for example, if this information is accessible to third parties and possibly even evaluated – for market research purposes, for example.
Internet of Things security can also be problematic with regard to the question of whether the respective IoT network can be accessed externally. Among other things, the following protective measures are recommended when using the Internet of Things:
- Use of your own secure password and your own username
- regular change of password
- Deactivation of the UPnP function on the router in order to protect against denial of service attacks by botnets
- Use of the mutual authentication process, in which the IoT devices authenticate each other using certificates
- Use of the Trusted Network Connect process to increase security by analyzing network access
- Find the latest software updates and install them, as this is not always done automatically
- Integration of IoT devices only in a secure WLAN
The importance of the Internet of Things for companies
For companies, the Internet of Things can primarily mean cost savings; especially in building automation and industrial automation.
One problem with the Internet of Things, however, can be the energy consumption caused by the constant Internet connection. The energy that can be saved with IoT devices is partly consumed again by these devices.
In the Internet of Things, Swisscom made investments at an early stage and, for example, set up the independent data radio network Low Power Network (LPN) LoRaWAN, the use of which only results in low power consumption by the IoT devices.
Internet of Things and 5G
The expansion of the 5G cellular network opens up completely new possibilities in the IoT area. Thanks to 5G, the Internet of Things will experience an enormous surge in development. With the introduction of 5G, mobile data transmission speeds are many times higher, which opens up completely new areas of application for the Internet of Things.
Since the Swiss Confederation is one of the world’s pioneers in the field of 5G network expansion, the Internet of Things in Switzerland has great development potential for all possible areas of application.
