5 Compelling IoT Applications

NEW DELHI, INDIA: According to Cisco, the next nine billion devices connected to the internet in 2020 will use M2M technologies. Many of these devices will be used to link the physical world to the internet via sensors that take readings from their local environment and output the information up into the cloud.

Indian start-ups based in Bangalore and Pune are already working on many IoT based products and solutions. Here are Top 5 IoT applications.

Smart home 

IoT is the key to manage smart homes by allowing the home owners to monitor and control energy efficiency, access control, security, home monitoring and home care. Google’s Nest has developed products designed to bring Big Data and the Internet of Things into our homes via its smart thermostats, fire alarms and security cameras.

We can expect smart homes to be the next big thing by 2016.

Wearables

Wearables didn’t quite made the noise as was expected in 2015 but with variety of wearables lined up for release next year we can surely expect some really cool designs paired with more consumer approachable technology. Apple has planned to release its smartwatch2 next year and there’s a lot happening in the VR segment with all the major players like Microsoft (HoloLens), Sony(PlayStation VR) and Samsung (Gear VR) planning a release next year.

Connected car

We haven’t seen much buzz around the connected car yet but most large auto makers as well as few startups are working on connected car solutions. Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto are two operating-system extensions for the automobile industry. CarPlay and Android Auto though work on different interfaces but provide similar capabilities. Users can control a selection of apps via voice command and make other features available on the infotainment screen

By 2020, nearly 40 million cars will be using Android Auto and 37.1 million will be using CarPlay, according to IHS, and that will cover nearly all cars launching connected car services, according to BI Intelligence estimates.

Connected Health

The concept of a connected health care system and smart medical devices bears enormous potential not just for companies but also for the people. Currently, digital healthcare is still in its infancy but few exciting things are happening in the startup sectors all over. One such company is Pune based LifePlot, which claims to be the cheapest and most mobile electrocardiography diagnosis tool which records most of the data of basic medical diagnosis.

Smart grids

Smart grids are going to be the future of digitized infrastructure. A future smart grid uses information about the behaviors of electricity suppliers and consumers to improve the efficiency. Siemens has already developed smart grid applications which collects, processes and merges consumption data with a wide range of data sets. The system serves as the underlying data infrastructure for a wide range of applications like outage management, asset optimization, demand response, and consumer engagement.