The Internet of Things or IoT has fascinated researchers and academics for a long time. Imagine a world where everything is interconnected and can be monitored and remotely operated over the internet. It can include things as small as your household appliances to large-scale industrial machinery.
In today’s world, IoT is not a mere fascination anymore, we see it all around us and even more so in the industry. From turning your air conditioner on/off with your phone to monitoring the manufacturing of car parts in Indonesia while sitting in Europe, both are examples of IoT.
Today we will explore what is IoT, how it benefits us in our lives and industries in their work, and some of the concerns that experts may have with it.
What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?
IoT means physical devices of different types and sizes are interconnected digitally through the internet, allowing for remote access and monitoring of these devices via sensors and other electronics. In essence, it is a large web where everything is interconnected over a large area and the exchange of information is happening between them.
Benefits of IoT
The Internet of Things is an extremely useful tool both in our personal and professional lives and is extensively being used in the industrial sector and has proven to be enormously beneficial. Here are some of the ways it is helping the industry.
Increased Efficiency
IoT allows for greater efficiency in the work, where companies can remotely monitor their assets, both humans and machines alike, and from the data they gather they can come up with strategies that create more efficiency in the workplace.
Improved cost
Thanks to IoT costs can be brought down in the industry as any kind of industry is not tied down by its geography anymore. You can see how an automobile manufacturing company can save money by distributing its work in different countries and controlling them all through a central hum.
Revolutionizing healthcare
It has revolutionized the healthcare industry where patients etc. can be monitored remotely and gadgets like digital watches can monitor a person’s health remotely and provide assistance in case of an emergency.
Helping the environment
With IoT, we can monitor the environment on a large scale and look for any natural or man-made disasters or conditions that may lead to one and can take precautionary measures to ensure maximum safety.
Concerns with IoT
While the uses of IoT are too many and undeniable, experts have raised some concerns over it too. The first and foremost is the security and privacy concern. When your data can be monitored on such a large scale it can lead to data leaks and can become a security issue and ruin your privacy.
Secondly with so much access to their workforce companies can become increasingly authoritarian by monitoring their employee’s every move and making their jobs excessively more difficult, that is if they don’t already replace them with automated machines.
Conclusion
To summarize IoT has become essential to our daily lives, especially in the industrial sector and is part of the future, but if we are not careful and address the concerns related to it, it can lead to a disaster.