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IoT Shall be the Next Big Force to Drive Mobility

IoT represents the next boundless wave of technology enabled by mobiles and the endless possibilities it holds in improving our lives. Here we discuss the key trends emerging in this domain

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PCQ Bureau
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IoT Shall be the Next Big F

- Dilip Modi, Chairman, SpiceConnect

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The Indian economy has undergone many significant changes post the economic reforms in the 1990s. In the first two decades of the 21st century, the country witnessed a mobile phone revolution, thereafter progressing to the smartphone and now towards high speed mobile internet. This rapid technological evolution has opened up new avenues for innovation and economic growth for the country by connecting people to the internet and creating opportunities for intelligent product design.

Dilip Modi Chairman, SpiceConnect Dilip Modi

Chairman, SpiceConnect

Analysts predict that the next revolution in consumer technology will be connected devices, wherein millions of devices will be able to communicate with each other directly. This wave of technology has the potential to significantly enhance the quality of our lives through the seamless connectivity of multiple devices through the internet and cloud.

As per Wikipedia, The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects or “things” embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity, which enables these objects to collect and exchange data. The Internet of Things allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration between the physical world and computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit. Each thing is uniquely identifiable through its embedded computing system but is able to interoperate within the existing Internet infrastructure. Experts estimate that the IoT will consist of almost 50 billion objects by 2020.

The ubiquitous smartphone is actually the first widely accepted IoT device which features multiple sensors such as an accelerometer, gyro meter amongst others. Modern smartphones are capable of measuring and recording our heart rates, blood pressure, daily steps taken and a host of vital statistics. In the future the smartphone could become the central hub device, sharing these data points to other connected consumer devices such as air conditioners, air purifiers, health monitors and lighting systems to dynamically control our room environment as soon as we enter a room.

How IoT is Going to Impact Us

Wearable devices such as fitness bands, watches and eyeglasses are already enhancing our technology experience by measuring and reporting data such as fitness tracking, vital figures and weather amongst others, enabling us to make smarter daily choices. IoT has a great potential to revolutionize fields such as healthcare, automobiles, personal appliances and industrial equipment. Through intelligent machine to machine communication (M2M) and Radio Frequency identification (RFID), equipments and devices can record and exchange data, process information and generate machine commands. Driverless cars are a great example of IoT in action, wherein the car collects real time traffic data from GPS to navigate the best possible routes and also communicates with other cars to avoid collisions.

Several connected appliances are already available in the market, case in example are air purifiers which allows users to monitor and control air quality levels in their homes using their smartphones. In healthcare for instance, IoT devices can enable remote health monitoring measuring blood pressure, heart rate and also management of advanced devices such as pacemakers and hearing devices.

Cloud adoption is expected to increase significantly in the near future due to improved cloud hosting facilities and faster internet speeds. Tailor-made IoT cloud service connected with smartphones and tablets will plausibly become the norm, allowing users to analyze and use vast datasets in real time for improved efficiency.

Furthermore, new devices are expected to be developed across more sectors such as smart homes, smart industrial equipment and energy efficiency amongst others. Platform-to-platform integration will be the key towards creating a seamless interface and experience between things and end users, Product design will become one of the most watched spaces in the future as consumers will increasingly expect smart product design equipped with the necessary embedded sensors connecting the device to their mobile devices and IoT systems.

Internet of things represents the next boundless wave of technology enabled by mobiles and the endless possibilities it holds in improving our lives. A key prerequisite for this progress will be policies that allow mobile internet to expand swiftly in the country to match pace with connectivity demands of consumers and our economy. Government policies that support high speed wireless connectivity should focus on making more spectrum capacity available for mobile and other IoT tools, and also increasing investment and infrastructure in targeted research to encourage innovation in this sector.

However there is no doubt that mobiles and IoT are inseparable partners in the future of technology. As part of IoT ecosystems, mobiles will play a critical role in the collection, management and use of data generated.

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