We must be prepared for the Internet of Things (IoT) Tsunami, but it will not be in 2020 as many of us believed. The good news is that it is approaching but now more quietly than a few years ago.

For the most pessimistic or unconvinced of the IoT, I must say that much of the hype around the Internet of Things is not really hype anymore. I will say one more time: “IoT’s here to stay”.

In Ten Trends of IoT in 2020, Ahmed Banafa considers that in the year 2020 we will hit all 4 components of IoT Model: Sensors, Networks (Communications), Analytics (Cloud), and Applications, with different degrees of impact. If we pay attention again to the predictions by 2020, the IoT is predicted to generate an additional $344B in revenues, as well as to drive $177B in cost reductions. In his article, Mr, Banafa explore the impact of many technologies on IoT and predict what is next for IoT.

No doubt that disruptive new trends will emerge over the next few years that will pave the way for a complete overhaul in the way we view and interact with our world and the Internet of Things will continue its brisk and steady rise as our planet and everything in it becomes connected.

Nevertheless, some shadows continue to appear for IoT like we can read in “IoT in 2020: awkward times ahead” . The pain points are the usual suspects:

• Security – The divide between IT and OT is one of the central causes of the security problem
• Lack of complete solutions - IT companies have been aggressive in partnering up with OT companies, and there’s a general recognition that most complete IoT solutions will involve products from multiple vendors.
• No single vendor is able to offer a complete solution to a given IoT problem and, therefore, unable to solve the broader issues with IoT technology in a unitary way.
• Edge networking- One of the major trends for 2020. The cloud can be a limiting factor in a lot of IoT deployments.

I was pleased say that I have included some of the Top 5 IoT trends released by Ecosystm in this free report “The Top 5 IoT Trends For 2020”. Here's what we think 2020 has in store for IoT:

• 5G Providers Will Be Forced to Operate Outside their Comfort Zone
• Satellite IoT Connectivity Solutions Will Start to Compete Against and Work with LPWANs
• IoT Sensor Analytics Will Become the Fastest Growing AI Workload
• Construction Will Become the Unsuspecting Influencers for IoT Adoption
• The Edge Will No Longer Be at the Edge 

Following the tradition of previous years, I have been collecting links to other sources with IoT Predictions and Trends for 2020. You can read more predictions in these links:

Previous Predictions collected in my articles

2020 IoT Predictions  - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2020-iot-trends-predictions-prepared-tsunami-francisco-maroto  

2019 IoT Predictions  -  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/yes-we-continue-making-iot-predictions-2019-francisco-maroto/

2018 IoT Predictions -   https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/have-we-already-bored-predicting-iot-francisco-maroto/

2017 IoT Predictions - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/finally-2017-year-internet-things-i-do-think-so-francisco-maroto/

Key Takeaway                

This year there are fewer predictions about IoT. This is not bad. On the contrary, it is a symptom that the hype has disappeared and the IoT has evolved and has become more real.

For my part, every year I am lazier to read predictions and trends. Many articles are written by non-IoT experts, are repetitive and do not add great value.

Let´s keep the positive messages of 2020 IoT Predictions and Trends:

1. IoT is developing at a fast pace
2. The maturity phase of IoT has just begun, and it is soon to become a full-blown business in the coming years.

We, the IoT Pioneers, know that IoT development isn’t something that will happen overnight but we also know that IoT will star developing in 2020 at a fast pace.

Back in 2000, futurist Paul Saffo warned that in 2020, we’ll be “living in an age of technologically induced creative destruction.”

We're far from that. Expect a 2020 year of less IoT technology news and more business news.

No matter if you are running a small business, a medium or large company or a multinational, IoT is going to find its way into your business. So, be prepared for the IoT Tsunami that is coming!

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is the next big thing in the manufacturing industry that allows manufacturers to digitize their overall business. The majority of large scale manufacturers are aware of this revolutionizing technology of IIoT but do not know where to focus their efforts and what decisions to make to get started.

The end goal of introducing IIoT in manufacturing is to reduce the downtime of factories, save energy with smart power saving, and increase overall revenue. The Internet of Things can transform the manufacturing ecosystem by expanding the value chain, moving towards the agile production process, and improving customer service.

What is the Industrial Internet of Things?

Internet of Things (IoT) has extended beyond being just a buzzword. IoT capabilities implemented in the Industrial and Manufacturing space make way for the modern revolution Industrial IoT. With an amalgamation of different technologies like machine learning, big data, sensor data, M2M communication, and automation, IIoT is all set to transform the manufacturing processes. IIoT makes way for connected enterprise improving visibility, boosting operational efficiency, increases productivity as well as reducing the complexity of the process in the industry. Industrial IoT is a strategy aimed at enhancing the quality, safety, productivity in a trade.

IIoT: Optimizing Operations in Manufacturing

Let’s know the adoption plan for manufacturers to move towards smart factories. IIoT is utilized to employ the industry-best practices of device connectivity and management, synchronization of processes, and advanced analytics to get the best productivity. The following are essential dimensions that require the attention of manufacturers to prepare for the fourth industrial revolution.

Empowering Equipment to Become Smart and Intelligent

 The traditional working pattern of factories is mismanaged, for which the following factors are held responsible:

• Range of equipment working independently of each other
• Machinery that is fixed only in cases of break down
• No consideration of load balance for scheduling of maintenance checks 

Smart factories are built with intelligent equipment that self-manage work and collaborate with the entire manufacturing ecosystem for the synchronized workflow of processes.

Installing Sensors for Safety

Using sensors helps in increasing visibility into the functioning of equipment and get details on possible threshold violations. Manufacturers can identify problems through remote monitoring of computer where sensors are connected to other large networks for in-depth analysis.

IoT is not just about saving money and time; it is about keeping workers safe. Sensors can be used to manage and monitor workers’ locations in case of an emergency or evacuation.

Creating a Blended Workforce

 Workers operating on a pre-defined schedule and regardless of production plans result in wastage of resources, money, and efforts. The best way to making optimum use of the workforce is to align their work along with machines so that they can work collaboratively to deliver outputs as per manufacturing requirements. 

Such result-orients efforts of a blended workforce allow in improving the efficiency of manufacturing processes. Train the workforce to use the emerging technologies of wearables and mobile helps in implementing the concept of enterprise mobility. This eventually results in enhanced accessibility and flexibility to undertake tasks. 

Essential data such as checking of work status, work allocation details, and instructions can be accessed as well as updated in real-time by the entire workforce. Integration of human and machine, i.e. blended workforce resolves the problem of underutilized and unutilized assets, crossing of deadlines, and management of people as per the urgency of the delivery.

The Power of Prediction

IIoT can exponentially improve operating efficiencies and increase the power of prediction in the manufacturing process. Just consider if a machine stops functioning in an optimum manner, the connected sensors can identify the reason behind malfunction and generate a service request. 

Predictive maintenance is the next big thing that will help a manufacturer predict when a machine might breakdown or enter a precarious operating condition even before it happens.

The process of condition monitoring is a fairly time-intensive process to analyze sound frequencies, vibrations, and temperature of a given machine to assess its reasonable condition. With the effective use of sensors, it is easy to collect and quickly analyze data points prediction becomes powerful and more comfortable.

The overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) improved with IIOT and sensors. The increased OEE reduces waste for the organization by predicting when machines would require maintenance and need to be taken out of service. By decreasing machine downtime, manufacturing companies can take better advantage of the factory’s capacity.

 Business Process

Manufacturers are defying the conventional tactics and improving business processes by abandoning manual management involving tracking people, materials, tasks, and products. Now is the era of integrated and synced systems that are intricately planned and executed in real-time, providing real-time visibility of materials and products throughout lifecycles, optimize workflow to encourage preventive actions for defective products, and optimize plant operations for effective use of resources and assets. The factories of the future will be agile, adjusting swiftly and effectively to change according to customer demand while controlling costs and quality.

Conclusion

IIoT has been identified as one of the most promising technologies with the power of creating economic change. There are several possibilities that have added up to the “Next Big Thing”. However not every evolving technology has the potential to break through the business and social landscape.

Artificial Intelligence is a popular term currently evolving around software industries. Many app development companies were developing their requirement process to recommend AI-bases workers and also many institutes were trained to learn the concept of AI. It clearly says that in the future, most of the tasks will drive through AI. Hence it is good to know how AI will help the professions to run their routine work effectively. It’s not only about learning the skill but also depends upon the interest you have to learn. AI does not only deals with a particular requirement.

It also deals with sectors like data analytics, machine learning, data mining, etc. By combining these factors will help to maintain the AI to train the job for the long term. Hence make sure to know the areas that follow to build the profession in profit. This blog will help you to know the information for the profession that helps to operate effectively.

Software Development

Software development is one of the topmost demanding jobs in every country. By getting into the job as a software developer will help to promote the career faster than the other industries. In the future, AI will help the programmers to think less as machine learning will take place to eliminate the code and introduce the algorithm to build the application. By allowing the Ai to adopt the section to work will help to play the complete function in an easy mode. IT reduces the effort of using the coding and also helps to build the apps easier and effectively. For example, software testing is one of the important roles in development, by placing AI to automate the testing will help to replace the employee and reduce the effort of them.

Machine Industry

The machine industry is a vital part to run society. Workers were working for the long term and creating a great effort to complete the work. AI will help to respond to the function to operate smarter and effectively. By utilizing the data analytics, the result to maintain the chain process will become easier and more effective. Hence complete machine industry will get a hike to improve their quality. By focusing on furthermore internets of things get communicated with the sources from industry and get huge control. Hence by using these technologies will bury the effort of workers and also increase the quality of time from the manufacturing side. It improves the quality and helps to maintain the product to get qualified.

Education System

Education is the right of every citizen of the country but most of the time students get frustrated due to the load that is given by the system. Hence it collapses the mind easily. Thus to prevent it Ai can implement it. It helps the system to decrease the load of education and improves understanding. It allows the student to get interact easier and helps to improve the concept to understand.

For example, if a student wants to learn the practical session, its easy to make it live virtually. It helps them to improve their creativity and also increase their interest to observe. Hence by implementing AI will tend to improve the whole concept of education.

Healthcare

The healthcare industry is always an important part to get noticed. Every person was looking for improving their health but most of the time they were lazy to build the habit to take care. Thus by using Ai, the cost of spending bucks for health will reduce and the improvement of the human cycle will get increases. Already Ai apps were built to support the human by analyzing their symptom. Hence in the future, apps get increased and also the technology will get improved. By acknowledging the human about their problem with the symptom will help to improve their health without any support and also help to save their money. Even data analytics will help the patient’s improvement of humans in terms of analyzing the error. Thus by using data science as it is a part of Ai will help to maintain the record of patient safer and also reliable to the human.

Supply Chain

The supply chain is one of the toughest parts of the profession as it requires used by many companies to service for them. By using the data analyst, the usage level of getting information will be much good rather than depending on humans. It helps the business person to prevent the time shortage and also increases the quality of response. By ensuring the time is important to supply chain business as it matters a lot to the supply chain profession. Hence applying Ai to the supply chain will be prettier and help the process to work properly and reliability for the system.

Wearable Gadgets

Technology is much reliable to society to help the human and increase the concentration on their work. Wearable devices are one of the popular devices that have been getting merge with human routines. Especially devices are used for health reasons. Hence by using the gadgets will allow the user to acknowledge the ratings of health. By using the gadgets, the usage will be finer to track. Also, the apps related to wearable devices were much high and also demand is also getting a hike. Many top app companies were working for wearable apps. Hence the usage of these kind apps will bring great attention to the software industry. It is related to IOT. Thus automatically Ai will get into the game to manage the data.

Business Models

Maintaining the business as per the requirement of the client is the major responsibility of every person. The important part is the data that has to be analyzed well. It should not get criticized. Hence analyzing the data with the help of AI models will improve the business requirement and also the client requirement. Thus in the future, many companies will seek data analytics to improve their business.

Final Words

Artificial intelligence is one of the topmost sectors in today’s world. And driving the field via these techniques will help to improve the complete session.

Artificial intelligence plays a significant role in the growth of the IoT sector. Artificial intelligence emulates the task more profoundly, Those performances were earlier limited to the human workforce, but now the Artificial intelligence development company has made a lot more noise in almost every sector by actually revolutionize everyone's lives.

The Internet of Things has been introduced in recent years with the objective to transfer data to other devices through the internet. IoT relies heavily on the internet connection that handles large volumes of data. IoT and artificial intelligence from the last two years are going hand in hand as these data helps in generating a lot more data that can be taken as actionable results.

Artificial intelligence helps IoT to handle the data on the basis of algorithms where they can convert data with the help of machine learning-based analytics. These AI Developers help the company to monitor operations that can give great insight from the data with greater accuracy.

Gartner predicts that by 2022, more than 80 % of enterprise IoT projects will include an AI component, up from only 10 % today.

How AI and IoT are Contribution to Growth

AI at work can access your IoT databases and know about your choices on the basis of last preferences, these personalized suggestions can easily make someone's life much easier. Here are some vital factors where Artificial intelligence affects the internet of things. 

• Greater Revenue

IoT and AI are proving to be beneficial for most industries. These effects are enhanced by greater revenues and returns along with smart services-based solutions. With the extraordinary combination are transforming the workflows and other productivity of the businesses. 

• Reduced Costs

AI and IoT ensure to reduce the operational cost by properly monitoring the smart sensors, meters, other fitted appliances. AI solution providers are providing impressive features that minimize the operational costs of households and business enterprises.

• Predictive Analysis

AI uses the power of analysis to forecast and minimize unpredictable incidents at the most basic level. It allows businesses to manage real-time data in determining the condition of machinery and equipment which are likely to break down in some time.  Proper action can be taken prior to avoid any kind of damages or loss with an associated cost. 

• Enhance Risk Management

A number of applications that integrate IoT with AI help companies to better understand and foresee a range of risks with the fast response, allowing them to better manage the safety of the workers, loss or any other cybersecurity attacks. This law enforcement identifies all the possible loss and tries to eliminate the threat before access.

How IoT impacts Industrial Sector

#1 Manufacturing

The manufacturing industries are integrating smart sensors with the help of IoT in order to perform enhance the efficiencies. These smart sensors help in detaching the threats be it aircraft, automobiles, household. By implementing Artificial intelligence solutions and smart sensors can help in diminishing the errors and also reduces the overall cost with the help of prognostic analysis.

#2 Smart Homes

IoT introduced the concept of a smart home where all devices are connected through a shared network. Through integrating this with AI, all of these apps will be able to understand the commands of their users and make smart decisions accordingly.

It can also help to reduce the cost of electricity by switching off devices when things are not used just by switching off the lights.

#3 Airlines

After the evolution of the latest IoT technology, all kinds of machines are run through sensors. We do not need to physically touch the devices to perform. These sensors are needed to identify the maintenance issue if any flight delays or cancellations, sensors automatically send messages to its passengers about schedule time or delays. Artificial intelligence solutions automatically transmit the issue, be it flight delays, cancellation or any other essential information. 

Conclusion

AI and IoT cumulative impact would fundamentally restructure our personal and professional lives. Therefore, wise companies opt for a strategic and innovative strategy to control this incoming phenomenon and transform it into a huge opportunity for their company to escalate. These dependencies and AI and IoT are aiming to gather important issues that process and store data with the visionary approach that can easily escalate businesses. The IoT development company is reshaping the whole scenario by simply combining the AI and IoT functionalities.

The fact that the Internet of Things technology is the future of robotics and the digital industry as a whole is far from news. And here, how blockchain will help it develop is the most relevant, hot and promising topic of the current time. So, how will blockchain help build intelligent information exchange systems?

How the Internet of Things Works

In a nutshell, the “Internet of Things” (IoT) is such a concept of the internal network for household devices and items. A kind of chat or messenger for coffee makers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, and even cars, thanks to which they can exchange data on the external environment.

Hundreds of smart people around the world are struggling to create a language that will teach everyday objects to communicate with each other. And, it seems that the blockchaindevelopment by app development companies is of little use here. But this is only at first glance.

In particular, IBM is developing this concept. Combining the two concepts is supposed to help:

• track and record all changes in the network;
• create special magazines with the entire history of changes;
• Define a smart contract system for data transfer.

Blockchain, in this case, would help to unite several devices into a single infrastructure. They would thus be able to exchange parts of the property - for example, data or currency. At the same time, the blockchain itself can be used to track the time of transactions at any time.

What do the experts think?

IBM conducted a special survey among IT industry professionals to find out how promising they find blockchain technology concerning the concept of the “Internet of things”.

However, this is the main property of any blockchain, wherever it is used. In the "Internet of things" you can also adjust the level of control over the device: weaken or strengthen. Using the blockchain in this way, you can reduce the risks of hacker attacks on the data exchange system.

Dell, represented by its specialist Jason Compton, believes that blockchain could become an alternative to traditional security systems. Decentralized control will allow you to expand the scheme and make it more easily scalable - that is, you will not have to build a multi-level expensive infrastructure with secure servers that the devices would have to access to exchange data. You can connect them to a peer-to-peer network directly and in any quantity you like.

Blockchain is not only for security

Using distributed registry technologies for IoT devices can not only solve security issues but also add new features and reduce operating costs. Blockchain is a technology that works with transactions and provides interaction in the network. It is great for monitoring processes in IoT.

For example, based on the blockchain, you can support the identification and discovery of devices, facilitate microtransactions between them, and provide proof of payment.

Ways to use the blockchain for the “Internet of things”

There are at least four areas in which the blockchain can be integrated into IoT:

• Creation of a trusting environment;
• Cost-saving;
• Acceleration of transactions;
• Security Improvement.

By the way, they are already working on these technologies to use them in the development of “smart equipment” or its individual components.

Examples of solutions of blockchaindevelopment for IoT

A typical example is the support by the Hyundai industrial corporation of a startup using blockchain technology. The project was called HDAC (Hyundai Digital Asset Currency) and at the end of November 2017 raised about $40 million for development.

The essence of technology that Hyundai is developing is to adapt the blockchain for its own IoT devices. The consensus protocol will unite all devices and act on the principle of smart contracts for the exchange of transactions.

Another company, Filament, is developing an industrial chip for IoT that will automatically encode sensor data and then adapt it for the blockchain. Thus, the exchange of information from the external environment between various equipment in a peer-to-peer decentralized network will be achieved.

The third characteristic example is the IOTA project, which uses the innovative blockchain - Tangle, designed specifically for IoT devices. At the same time, MIOTA tokens are traded on the cryptocurrency market and have impressive capitalization, representing value for investors.

It is worth recognizing that the development of the blockchain for the Internet of things is still far from implementation. In particular, several security-related issues have not yet been resolved, and some legal issues have not been addressed. However, the potential from the interaction of IoT and blockchain is truly enormous.

The advent of Industry has marked the rise of IoT - the Internet of Things as one of the most significant shifts in the global devices market. It refers to the use of internet connectivity among the electric devices and systems to execute a joint function autonomously. 

We can find an uncanny resemblance to this concept in the movie Home Alone 4 (2002), where the idea of a smart home fad was beautifully narrated with its pros and cons that will turn into a reality soon. Two decades down the line, we are on the brink of the IoT revolution, which will result in increasing the living standards globally. Dive in deeper to explore the current happenings and future horizons.

Current Market Scenario and the Probable Stakeholders

The potential of IoT applications is widely recognized by both enterprises, retail consumers, and government agencies as it will integrate the cyber-physical systems with internet connectivity in order to interact with the surrounding through sensors and manipulating devices. Business Insider estimates the value of this tech innovation to be $1.7 trillion in the year 2019. The use of the Internet of Things will reduce the need for human effort in various tasks and provide controlled environments for achieving the desired results. 

The investment done by the tech giants is illustrated in the below figure:

 (source: Forbes)

Some Famous User Cases Which are Expected to Take off Exponentially

Manufacturing Sector

The companies like ABB, Airbus, Shell, and the long-term IoT pioneer Caterpillar have been proactively pushing for such innovations in building safer workplaces that require fewer human interactions in hazardous work, which is also beneficial to the profitability of the business. It will also find great reception in predictive maintenance scheduling and inventory management. 

Asset Management

The businesses are looking forward to replacing the GPS in order to increase the efficiency of tracking company-owned devices through internet connectivity. This will also reduce the lags in logistics and provide accurate details for the consumables, as in the case of printers. Another example would be integrating the payroll software with the employee vehicles to reimburse traveling claims.

Agriculture 

The use of IoT to develop smart greenhouse farms with autonomous controlled environments will prove to be a boon for the agriculture industry as it will help in boosting crop production. Smart irrigation will control the soil quality, moisture content, atmospheric gas contents, and monitor plant health without any human intervention. The farm equipment will also be controlled in greenhouse farms with minimal need for human support.

Smart Homes

They are one of the largest areas where the revolution is expected to unravel the disruption in the electronic devices market. Google Nest, Ecobee, and Netatmo being the big fishes in the business. Everything including from your regular home appliances like fridge, television, ambiance and temperature control system, music system, and utilities are connected over the internet and controlled by remote servers. The user can interact with them using their smartphones. The house security is also connected with the central system. 

The effect on Living Standards

When we look at the current scenario, many of these tasks, when automated, the people currently dealing with hazards related to their respective fields such as heavy machinery or agriculture can work in a much more safer environment. Smart homes will increase the quality of life and help households in saving money since energy consumption is streamlined while providing a luxurious experience. Businesses will experience higher profitability and increased morale of the employees owing to the techno-savvy environment. 

The Development of Newer Devices through Prototyping 

Before the application is made, it is essential to test the reliability of all the devices since they will be used under different conditions and other manufacturer’s devices too. Also, the addition of newer devices shall also be considered. The use of prototypes in test conditions will prove to be an economical alternative to full-fledged testing. This will include the use of sensors and motion actuation systems with minimal cosmetic additions and cladding.  

The following considerations will affect the development of future-ready electronic gadgets compatible with IoT applications:

• Safety against web-based third-party cyber attacks.
• Modularized designs with programmable memories.
• Standardization of source code libraries to facilitate interoperability.
• Confirmation of regional government regulations.
• Operational conditions.

The modern tech innovations such as AI, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, and the dawn of 5G connectivity will push the IoT movement along with the use of advanced sensors. Increased computing capacities will also contribute to data processing functionalities. However, the stakeholders in the industry ranging from vendors to maintenance personnel will have to cope with the advances in the technological aspects. The Internet of Things is also expected to be backed by academic institutions by covering it in the syllabi for creating a skilled workforce.

The author would also like to discuss the threats associated, which would pose a danger for the users. If the security provided isn’t adequate, ransomware attacks, stealing user information, altering device settings to provoke hazardous conditions are some of the worst-case scenarios. Hence, the vendors shall be conscientious about the security aspects along with the legal repercussions. 

Your Piece of the Pie 

A lot of new facilities and value additions to the existing devices and tools will boost the quality of human life, curb the problems caused due to the dangerous working conditions along with the health problems caused by them. It will find a broad spectrum of business domains, including smart cars to intelligent healthcare that will radically redefine our homes and workplaces alike.

The real potential is yet to be explored since the number of gadgets and tools is increasing day by day in each aspect of life. Be it economic or social backdrops, we will experience cost-optimization going hands in hands with unparalleled convenience, which is a rare phenomenon so far. We can also expect the Internet of Things crossing paths with other advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, and Edge Computing that will add value to their purpose in an exponential manner. 

Source: https://factohr.com

IoT technologies or "Internet of Things" collect and analyze information about the object, its movement, condition, and many other features. In the European Union alone there are currently more than 13.3 millions of active trackers that use this system, which is a significant growth compared to 0.7 of a million in 2016.

An object of observation will be tagged for tracking with a relatively small device that collects the necessary information and sends it to you via Wi-Fi. But how one should know which type of IoT solutions to choose?

IoT Tracking Technologies

1. RFID tags

RFID tags use radio frequency to identify the right element or track a certain "tag". In comes in two types:

• Passive RFID tag depends on the RFID reader to send a wave that they can use to reply. For example, to see who passes through the reader bars in the store with an unpaid product.
• Active RFID tags have an identifier along with a battery inside, which allows it to communicate with a reader on a larger distance.

2. BLE beacons

BLE beacons rely on Bluetooth Low Energy so they can communicate, often used inside mobile phones. They can send multiple types of signals and detect many devices around them.

Beacons come in different forms and devices:

• Parent beacons process and collect received data, communicate with child-beacons.
• USB beacons
• Router-sized beacons
• Small portable beacons

3. NFC chips

Near Field Communication is one of IoT technologies that rely on the electromagnetic field when are very close to each other (5-20 centimeters). NFC devices interact similar to RFID, can also be active and passive:

• Active NFC sends and receives data (for example, it's being used on smartphones)
• Passive NFC only sends information

4. Zigbee hardware

Zigbee was invented for more complicated communication. They create a small network in a limited area, powered by a small radio.

Zigbee chips are widely used in radios and USB interfaces among other IoT solutions. It's also famous for its low cost and power expenses.

5. LTE advanced

Long-Term Evolution is a wireless communication technology that was developed for faster internet, bigger storage and data processing. It's mostly used by mobile phones but sadly has different regions depending on the country where the phone was produced, with no support for a different frequency.

6. LiFi

Visible Light Communication based Light Fidelity uses diodes to communicate at the speed of light without a chance for a human to notice the signal. The signal is then received by a photodetector.

LiFi is known to be the biggest rival of WiFi, though it's limited to the reach of the light that can be stopped by an obstacle.

7. GPS

Everyone who owns a phone is familiar with Global Positioning System, which provides geolocation at a certain time to all GPS receiving devices. While still haven't beat by its accuracy in tracking, GPS is known to be quite power-consuming because it determines an object's location in non-stop mode.

8. LPWAN

Low Power Wide Area Networks is created for long-distance communication and uses a low bit rate. It also allows to create a private wireless network.

Here some of the LPWAN based technologies:

• NB-IoT uses a wide range in cellular services and devices
• LoRaWAN uses a chirp spectrum radio module along with LPWAN technology
• DASH7 is a firmware standard with low-latency, used over LPWAN

How IoT tracking helps in your business

Which of the IoT technologies is the best suited for your business?

Commercial Organization

• A commercial organization may track their assets using RFID tags, such as Amazon keeps track of products in their vendor places
• BLE beacons can help understand the customers, how much time they spend in the store, which aisles they visit and how they move across them
• NFC technologies allow your customers to pay faster with their wireless credit cards
• Zigbee is a necessity for those who develop smart home devices
• LiFi help you set up shop displays and show advertisements to the customers

Industrial Business

• BLE beacons help organize the inner industrial process, track equipment, monitor assets, prevent human errors and incidents
• NFC takes care of security and access control
• Zigbee helps with remote monitoring in a company with a large facility. However the cost rise drastically when operating between the facilities, so it's not used
• LTE Advanced can instantly notify of a security breach and needed maintenance, write reports, draw a map of assets real-time movement
• LPWAN optimizes costs and energy losses and power outrage. It monitors liquid levels, energy installations, optimizes solar plants performance

Healthcare Facility

• RFID helps manage medical equipment and monitor the room's condition. It also helps with identification badges
• BLE beacons help with indoor navigation
• NFC tracks the patient's location, their time of treatment and health at home
• Zigbee can monitor patients in real-time at low-cost
• GPS tracks down the location of an emergency case
• Li-Fi can lag when the light is interrupted. Otherwise, it's a perfect tool since it doesn't mess with another equipment
• LTE has a personal network for enterprises. It's a large and secure network at a hospital

Logistics

• RFID identifies a vehicle, person, baggage and therefore is helpful at railroad, airports, and roads
• NFC helps scan tickets and trains passes fast
• GPS helps to locate fleet vehicles and contact them
• Modified with LED bulbs, LiFi cars help to prevent a collision in advance
• Paired with other technologies, LTE Advanced can monitor the flight in real-time and communicate in long-distance
• LPWAN can trace objects in real-time, optimize routes, detect and resolve faults, road threats, and maintenance

Agriculture and Food

• RFID is helpful with tagging and locating cattle and food
• GPS allows to plow and place crops precisely, map and monitor the field and save costs from farming
• LPWAN is useful for measuring the soil moisture, water levels, cattle hygiene, and gate security

A wide range of IoT object tracking technologies is created to serve different purposes. Decide among the best of IoT solutions for yourself or read more in our blog to help determine which option is the best for you.

The Internet of Things (IoT) or the connected ecosystem of devices, sensors, and computing systems is exploding with the latest technologies. As mobile devices are increasingly becoming more equipped with most advanced sensors and user-friendly user interfaces, they are playing a central role in the development and proliferation of the IoT ecosystem. No wonder IoT apps have emerged as the leading mobile app category with an era-defining impact on the lifestyle and development paradigms.

As the promise of this connected ecosystem, is not going to die down anytime soon, a famous mobile app development company working with IoT apps understand the opportunities promised by the connected ecosystem of gadgets and emerging technologies such as Machine Learning, edge computing, and in-memory computing.

Let's explain now the present state of things with iOS apps.

What do the Predictions and Statistics say?

According to most analysts of our time, the impact of IoT is really supposed to be huge as the vast majority of consumers are going to buy connected gadgets by the year 2019, as predicted by an Accenture group venture called Acquity. Another report by Gartner predicts that the total number of connected things across consumer homes, businesses, and industries will grow up to 26 billion by the time we reach 2020.

Improving Business Operation with IoT

With so much of promises on offer, naturally, organizations are trying to find out the best ways to equip their companies with the IoT ecosystem of gadgets and sensors. This obviously involves also combining the information fetched from a variety of connected sensors with predictive analytics. Modern enterprises are increasingly realizing the potential of IoT data when coupled up with analytics and the latest technologies such as Machine Learning. The smart apps utilizing the potential of IoT with the help of modern analytics and Machine Learning technology are actually trying to make things easier for their target users and customers.

Key Smart App Niches with Maximum Impact of IoT

While IoT is increasingly being integrated across industries and business niches, not all areas of IoT Integration are equally successful. Over the years, many people quickly refer to IoT as smart home gadgets, and it was the area where connected gadgets and apps started their journey.

Then comes the wearables like smartwatches and health and fitness bands that quickly became part of a smart gadget revolution. Then the connected car entertainment and navigation system became a massive reality with major thanks to the ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft. Last but not least, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) also became a reality with never-before promise for efficiency, productivity, and excellence.

Let us explain these key niches that gradually played the biggest role in the smart app revolution.

Smart Wearables

Smart wearables like smartwatches and fitness bands remain the most prominent category of smart mobile apps showcasing the value proposition of a connected ecosystem of devices. From a plethora of smartwatch brands with their own ecosystem of standalone wearable apps to the plethora of smart fitness and health tracker bands with their connected mobile apps, continue to contribute to the IoT ecosystem of smart applications.

Smart Connected Cars

The concept of smart connected car gas evolved over the years. While the basic smart connectivity with the car entertainment system to allow phone calls or using the virtual assistant to respond to emails are increasingly becoming part and parcel of automobile offerings from leading brands, the connected cars in the way of driverless car technology or remote navigation control system has still not become a marketable technology.

But as most car makers these days have their own mobile apps to allow users to exercise greater control while driving or boarding the car, connected car apps have become a big pushing factor for the automobile sector. The connected car apps are also evolving to help with various issues, and tasks ranging from real-time traffic feedback to monitoring the technical difficulties to alerts for maintenance needs to monitoring fuel consumption, etc.

Smart Home Apps

This is the oldest and most mature category of iOS apps that went through almost a whole evolution. Smart home gadgets ranging from the electric lights to the air conditioning systems to the connected refrigerators to the smart coffee maker, all gadgets that can be communicated and controlled using mobile apps, belong to this category. The smart home apps allow users to control their home gadgets with simple commands while enjoying the comfort and ease in lifestyle.

IIOT Apps

Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) refers to the connected gadgets, devices, and sensors that, in an enterprise or industrial environment, help workers and employees to communicate and access data to complete tasks faster and with more efficiency. From the smart Beacon sensors or the geofencing technology in the retail stores to help to locate nearby customers to the use of connected security camera systems to process security information in real-time to the smart connected gadgets in the modern manufacturing units, there are a plethora of examples of Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) applications.

Conclusion

As the IoT apps across all industries are rapidly proliferating and opening new and never-before opportunities of boosting efficiency and ease of use, should we not forget about the challenges to the IoT app development. The biggest challenge to the IoT mobile app development as of now concerns the data security and question of protecting privacy. In the years to come, with the ongoing excellence of IoT apps, addressing security challenges will continue to remain a key priority for the IoT app developers and strategists.

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$13 trillion in ROI will be generated by 2025 - BI Intelligence.

Over 20 billion devices will be connected to the IoT by 2020 - Gartner

These predictions about IoT clearly reflects how rapidly this futuristic technology is evolving. To stay ahead of the curve, diverse industry-specific businesses are already investing heavily in different IoT initiatives. No wonder why IoT has become the “talk of the town” in the digital world. 

In this article, you are going to get a detailed insight on IoT - perks of adopting IoT in businesses, which industries are benefiting the most from it, how IoT is transforming the mobile app development sector along with what we can expect from this futuristic technology in 2020 and beyond.

IoT advantages for businesses 

By 2020, the IoT platform is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 40%. So, what’s the secret behind its global popularity?

Well, through customized IoT mobile solutions, this advanced technology helps in addressing some common business challenges including

• Safe data access

• Safe data storage

• Device control and management

• Integration and maintenance

Allowing the real-time data exchange to carry out different business actions and analysis is one of the major reasons why businesses are going gaga over it. The list of IoT’s wide range of business benefits includes

• Enhanced productivity

When it comes to the point of dealing with real-time data and variables, IoT does it the best. IoT-based applications help in management procedures. Also, it can help in carrying out automation of routine-based functions, informing employees about expected technical disruptions along with supporting remote troubleshooting procedures.

• Better customer experience

With IoT-based applications, businesses can offer a seamless and smart customer experience. Users can carry out transactions using smart trackers, mobile card readers, etc. Also, the smart meters and smart grid technologies help users to identify and resolve issues. 

IoT-based devices are capable of collecting a plethora of data on users’ behavior which helps businesses to come up with innovative ways to keep their customers engaged and offer better customer experience.

• Cost-effectiveness

Both the IoT devices and the IoT-based applications assist professionals not only to monitor equipment but also to diminish the downtime along with the risk factors. The applications based on this advanced technology can successfully predict possible system misalignments and failures which in turn helps in saving a lot for businesses.

Thus, IoT has become one of the most loved technologies to implement these days. 

Industries to benefit from IoT applications

As IoT technologies help in reducing overall business operating costs, increasing business visibility, business efficiency and productivity along with creating additional revenue streams, businesses across diverse industries are embracing it wholeheartedly. 

Healthcare and fitness

Today’s market is flooded with different IoT-enabled wearables. Such smart wearables help in monitoring calorie intake, heart rate, steps taken while walking, sleep along with tracking various other activities that help us to stay fit and healthy. 

Other than personal use of health wearables, some smart appliances like thermometers, scales, blood pressure monitors, etc. are presently available in the market. 

Smart home

The idea of home automation was relatively unfamiliar to most people until recently. With the emerging IoT technology, smart home automation has started to show its true power. Smart homes make our lives easier, more convenient, and more comfortable. 

Increased energy efficiency, better home security, savings on the electricity bill, maximized comfort, etc. are some popular reasons why smart home automation development with IoT is trending in the market these days. 

Retail and Supply Chain Management

Well, if you think different IoT devices and applications in the Retail industry is limited to only shopping and SCM, you are wrong. Enabling IoT in business is an opportunity for hospitality service providers, restaurants, and other businesses to manage not only their supplies but also to gather valuable insights. 

It allows business owners to avert order overflow, effectively restricting the employees who abuse their privileges along with managing the merchandising and logistical expenses in a better way. Business owners now can manage their inventory in real-time with IoT. 

Automotive

Self-driven cars or connected cars are no longer fiction only. Thanks to IoT. Thus, in the automotive industry, IoT use cases are actively expanding. Smart applications are being developed and integrated into car infotainment systems so that providing telematics, in-car navigation, and entertainment becomes easier than ever.

Also, IoT-enabled apps make sure predictive maintenance, surveillance, security, and safety of the vehicle along with real-time monitoring, cognitive insights for the management, etc. 

Other than the above-mentioned ones, industries related to manufacturing, agriculture, logistics are also ripping benefits out of IoT. 

IoT in mobile app development - what to expect next? 

You have already seen how IoT is transforming the way different industries operate. According to experts, IoT adoption is still in the early phase. The way the connected world of IoT is evolving, soon we can experience its power to the fullest. Even worldwide app developers would agree that IoT is leaving significant impacts on iPhone and iPad app development services. So, what can we expect from this futuristic technology in the future?

Edge computing will become more popular than cloud computing

We all know how cloud computing brought a wave in the digital world. Even today’s IoT devices store all the data in their cloud. However, in the tech world, change is the only constant. And this is why we will probably soon witness edge computing becoming more popular than cloud computing. 

Now, the question is how?

Instead of sending all the data from devices to the cloud, now, the IoT devices will transfer data to a local storage device first. This device can filter, sort, and accordingly can calculate the data and transfer only the required data set to the cloud. 

Undoubtedly, it will reduce traffic to the network. Also, collecting and processing data locally will allow the IoT apps to consume less bandwidth and work in bad connectivity to the cloud. 

IoT security will get more priority

The graph for IoT application adoption in businesses is increasing exponentially. Now, with more devices being connected to the network, not only the data volume increase but the risk for data security increases as well. 

We have seen how the smart home industry and health care industry is adopting various IoT-based applications. So, be it patient’s health-related data or data related to the home security, everything is being stored in the cloud. So, with sensitive data floating in the cloud, we can expect IoT security will get more priority in the next year and beyond. 

A unified framework for integration

To keep the industry safe and secure, a unified framework is required. The lack of a unified IoT framework - this is a serious challenge that IoT has faced while cooperating with different industries. However, another trending technology Blockchain will be a great help to accelerate the IoT adoption process by allowing the app developers to improve and develop mobile and web applications. 

So if someone is looking to develop IoT apps and looking for an Android or iOS app development company, it is important to know beforehand if they are capable and know the integration. 

IoT and AI

Both Artificial Intelligence and IoT are data-driven technologies. And both technologies are used for storing and analyzing data. So, to make automation more efficient, we may see these two thriving technologies being implemented together to gain better visibility along with accurate insights into various services. 

Other than what we mentioned above,

• We will see the rise of predictive maintenance
• Businesses will deliver more personalized customer experiences
• Software-as-a-Service will be the new normal

And all of these will be the direct or indirect impact of IoT being implemented in the mobile apps. 

However, mobile app developers have to advance their skill sets to integrate IoT successfully in their apps. Having sheer knowledge of Swift or Xcode won’t be enough for smart iPhone or iPad app development services. 

Of course, we will witness new technologies being emerged. However, these will make IoT easier to use and more intuitive to a large extent. 

As IoT becomes more prevalent, more CIOs are asked to take the reins of IoT projects. Gartner recently found that just under a third of responding organizations expected their CIO would lead their IoT efforts, and that by 2020, more than 10% of IoT projects in traditional industries would be headed by the CIO.

This prompted Jenny Beresford, research director, to caution: ‘The IoT will expand rapidly and extensively, continually surfacing novel and unforeseen opportunities and threats.’

Among those threats — which will definitely be CIOs’ responsibility — is the woeful security of traditional IoT and IIoT networks, as well as the privacy, connectivity and transaction speed issues that frequently plague IoT implementation.

To be maximally effective such a network must somehow be both highly connected and highly secure, and currently only one technology — blockchain — can achieve this.

However, obstacles remain, including the lack of an IoT-friendly blockchain consensus protocol.

Network Security and Data Exchange

IoT and IIoT networks typically lack physical security, host-based defences, and software updates and patches. These networks typically also use less-secure wifi protocols, web apps and APIs, combining larger-than-usual attack surface with weaker-than-usual security while retaining single points of control and failure.

In IoT, hackers see a new prize: gigantic botnets which can be used to spread malware, as with the Mirai botnet. And in IIoT, the rewards of network penetration can be industrial sabotage, espionage or large-scale blackmail, like Florida’s Riviera Beach.

Yet, companies cannot afford to hold off indefinitely on deploying IoT technology, since doing so exposes the organization to risk of being outmanoeuvred by competitors. Blockchain offers CIOs a way to deliver their IoT projects with the inherent security issues of large, distributed networks essentially solved.

Blockchain for IoT inherently eliminates single points of control and failure while simultaneously offering modular encryption and auditable transaction logs, so security issues are isolated, easy to identify and cannot spread through the network. Even if they do, they can’t gain control of it.

Transaction Processing

Machine-to-machine (M2M) communications generate gigantic amounts of data in transit — and the number of connected devices is growing rapidly:

With centralized control, much of the processing power of these devices is lost to idling, while trust issues keep transaction costs high. CIOs find themselves in the position of paying for computational capacity they can’t use, and for traditional data centers that represent a ‘honeypot’ for attackers and a bottleneck for their networks.

Peer-to-peer communication across connected devices would enable dynamic transaction load balancing, enabling spare computing power to be identified and employed and potentially eliminating centralized data storage.

To do this successfully, IoT will need to become trustless as well as peer-to-peer. Blockchain offers a trustless peer-to-peer communication and transaction medium with secure, unforgeable and auditable transaction logs; smart contracts can be used to set policies, control and monitor access rights and execute actions autonomously based on pre-defined conditions.

Privacy and Autonomy

IoT systems built on traditional networks cannot prevent access by governments, service providers or criminal actors. With weak security and single points of control, trust on these networks is impossible to guarantee.

IoT and IIoT both require connectivity and modular security. The current solution, ‘security through obscurity,’ must be replaced by a systemic shift to open-source systems that achieve ‘security through transparency’ and are far less vulnerable to sophisticated, persistent institutional attacks.

Without this shift, both consumer and industrial networks will be increasingly vulnerable, and as the number of connected devices grows, radically lower-cost privacy and autonomy will be necessary to save the IoT.

IoT Connectivity Costs

In the current iteration of the IoT, costs are prohibitively high while revenues fail to meet expectations. Many existing IoT solutions are expensive because of the high infrastructure and maintenance costs associated with centralized cloud delivery and large server farms.

IoT devices violate the traditional pricing and revenue model of the IT industry too: device costs and incomes don’t line up, and maintenance costs consume substantial amounts of revenue. Inherent technical reasons make this unavoidable using the current model, but CEOs still don’t like hearing it from their CIOs.

Cost reduction

Blockchain technology allows reliable data to be pooled and shared without trust, directly among stakeholders. This allows for a significant cost reduction, eliminating intermediaries and allowing for automatic transactions and payments across devices using smart contracts.

Blockchain-IoT Integration Challenges: Lack of an IoT-centric consensus protocol

The current consensus protocols available for blockchains — PoW, PoS, PoET, and IOTA — are all designed for permissionless blockchains focusing on financial value transfer. PoS and PoET can also be used in permissioned blockchains, but their consensus is probabilistic and does not end in a permanently-committed block, resulting in an unacceptably high ‘hard fork’ rate.

PoET requires specialist hardware and the enclave allocating wait time is a trusted entity; it has also proven vulnerable to node compromise.

What’s needed is a consensus that can keep the benefits of the distributed, auditable, trustless environment blockchain provides, but deliver it in real time and at scale — without mining or excessing transaction costs, and without multiple hard forks.

Having a smart home is all well and good until you become a victim of data leakage. 

This is not a discouragement against IoT implementation into your home, however. The Internet of Things market has been on the rise, and thanks to that, even our homes have become smarter. We don’t have to worry about doing our laundry, or making coffee manually anymore. With just a command we can do these things without having to move away from that comfy couch. 

But over the last couple of years, some incidents have shown that the matter of smart homes might not be all it’s hyped up to be. Just like everything, IoT implementation in smart homes has a bright and a dark side, but it seems the dark side is more sinister than the bright one. 

Incident one:

The combined research conducted by Northeastern University and Imperial College of London has shown how consumer devices are not to be trusted when dealing with client data. The researchers conducted 34,586 controlled experiments on 81 different IoT devices, 46 of which are from the US and 35 are from the UK, and this is what they found out-

• 72 out of these 81 devices are connecting to services that are not the first party. Which means they are connecting domains and addresses that have no business connecting to the device. 
• The research showed that 56% of the US devices and 83.8% of the UK devices were connecting to domains that were not in their region. 
• The safety of the data on an online connection depends on the level of encryption, but here’s the kicker- according to the research, all the tested devices have at least one plain-text flow, which means at least one data flow from all the devices is non-encrypted. Not to mention, any cyber-evesdroppers can analyze device traffic, encrypted or not, and figure out the user and device behavior. 

But in any case, this is just research. What happens when a smart home management platform leaves a server with important user data exposed on the internet without any password or protection?

Incident Two:

Around mid-June, the security team at vpnMentor, lead by security researchers Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, spotted a completely exposed server containing the customer details of 2 million users, including their usernames, passwords, and password reset codes. 

The server in question belongs to a Chinese smart home management platform Orvibo. Their smart home management Smartmate helps users control every aspect of their smart home, from security to closing the curtains. 

Not only a smart-home management system, but Orvibo also deals in self-manufactured smart home products such as smart light bulbs, HVAC systems, home entertainment systems, security cameras, smart power plugs, and many more. 

The open server containing user information poses a huge threat to everyone who’s data has been exposed. Since the data breach being exposed, Orvibo has taken steps to secure the server. Even then, the data breach can have serious repercussions for the users. What are these repercussions though? Let’s find out what can happen to your data if it is leaked by your smart home device. 

What will happen if your data is breached?

When hearing about IoT and data breach, the user can have two kinds of reactions.

One group would panic, and probably stop using all kinds of smart devices. 

Another group would ask so what if their data is being breached? And this point is to answer the question for the latter group. 

There is a reason why smart home security is something to be concerned about. The personal and sensitive data, the users enter in order to run the devices, can be manipulated in various ways, and each one would only harm the users. 

So what are the ways hackers can manipulate the IoT devices and data that make your home smart?

1. Manipulating The Devices

The first thing you might do after getting a smart device for your home is to configure its username and password. 

However, this is not a widespread practice. Most people often end up using the same default username and password the device came with, which means that it’s going to be super easy for the hackers to get your data and gain access to your device. And from there on, it’s an open sandbox for them to play with. They can do whatever they want with your device, but there’s one guarantee- whatever they do is not going to do you any good. 

2. Holding Your Data And Device For Ransom

The ransomware attack is the most familiar in the IoT industry. Through this, what the hacker usually does is that they would gain access to an IoT device, and cut off the legitimate user’s access. Then they would ask for a ransom for restoring the user’s access to that device. 

While this may not seem to be as dangerous, it is a serious threat. Once the hackers have gained access to your data, they can use it for many malicious ends, things you don’t even have any idea about. And not to mention, there is no guarantee that they would give you back the access to your data once you pay them. And that’s why implementing some serious security protocols in place is needed to prevent your device and data from ransomware attacks. 

3. Doing Serious Damage To Your Home

This one might seem a little petty, but here we go anyways. 

Imagine having a smart thermostat, which you can control using online access. Now imagine going out on a vacation with your family, making sure that everything around the house is shut down, even the thermostat. However, when you get back, you see that the thermostat turned up to its highest setting on its own, melting every plastic thing in your house. 

But did it happen on its own? How are you going to find out whether it just happened or someone purposefully hacked into your smart home system and used the thermostat to seriously damage your home? Stealing the authorization details, hackers can do this for multiple reasons, ranging from personal vendetta to trivial entertainment because they were bored. Either way, it is your home that will be damaged. 

4. Actively Robbing Your Home

When details such as passwords and user IDs, along with device IDs are being sent to an unknown third-party domain without any encryption, the data can be used in many ways, and one of them can be to rob your home. 

Think about how a hacker-robber group can hack into the security system of your home, disable it and then walk into your home to steal everything from you. This is a bold use of smart home data breaches, and it can be quite fatal in case someone is home when they decided to hit the house. In this case, the loss of data security can result in serious loss of physical property as well. 

5. Launching A Botnet Attack

Last but not least, gaining access to your IoT smart home devices, the hackers can turn these devices into zombie devices and launch a botnet attack. A botnet is a number of internet-connected devices. Each of these devices is running one or more bots, which can be used to perform distributed denial-of-service attacks. 

Through this, the hackers can also steal important data, send spam emails, getting the attacker access to the device, this is not only going to create a problem for you but others as well. 

With a DDoS attack, the botnets can connect to a website, generating so much traffic that the website crashes, leaving them vulnerable for many data exploitations. Using your IoT device, the hackers can launch a similar botnet attack to that of the Mirai Botnet attack of 2016. The Mirai botnet attack brought down a french host OVH. and that’s how your smart home devices can be turned into a weapon to bring down popular websites around the world. 

What Is Going To Be The Solutions?

Every problem has a solution, and so does this one. 

There have been plenty of solutions suggested for the data security of IoT devices. But so far only two of these solutions stand out. One is the use of machine learning, another being Blockchain. 

The Machine Learning Solution For Smart Homes

Rather than looking for a security solution for each device, AI and machine learning can create a shield of security for all the IoT devices for your home network. Deep learning and machine learning can not only monitor each and every device connected to the network, but they can also detect and prevent any unwanted and unknown device trying to connect with the home network. 

The use of AI comes in handy when analyzing the network traffic. This way the AI can keep up with the general traffic flow of each of the devices and detect any anomalies in the normal flow of traffic. Which means fewer chances of any hackers getting inside your home network. You can check out these top 10 highly performing smart home apps making it big.

Along with these benefits, the use of Machine learning and deep learning can also detect botnet activity, manage device authentication and access management. This way they can manage to give your smart home network 360-degree security without worrying you. 

The Blockchain Solution To All Things Smart-homes

The main problem with the smart home network is the centralization of data, which could be easily hacked into. And that’s why Blockchain can provide a decentralized solution to this problem. 

Once the smart home IoT systems start utilizing the blockchain system for data communication, the security will increase tenfold, because it is close to impossible to hack into a blockchain network and change the data. To do so, the hacker would have to have control of 51% of the devices connected, and when the number of connected devices spans millions, it can be a little tough. 

Not to mention, blockchain in IoT will end the trend of data monopolization. Your data won’t be a subject of daily business deals with large conglomerates. Blockchain can bring affordability and security for smart homes that people have been asking for a long time.

Conclusion 

So does it mean you should not be using smart home technology?

The answer is no, absolutely not. It is undeniable that smart home technology has its own benefits and you should be able to take advantage of that. But only after you have made sure of your data security. Once you have made sure that all the devices you are using are secure. You can make use of IoT devices for your home as much as you want. Always remember that the security measures for your home IoT devices are not a matter of joke.

More often than not, the budget and cost of ownership with a build-versus-buy aspect has been a key consideration in the decision-making process. Once after that, one goes out to seek the flexibility of the platform, vendor lock-ins, and scalability, which are definitely equally important, if not more.

The field, Internet of Things IoT, is one such domain which is driven by volume, velocity and variety. This makes you picky about the choices you make. Technologies continue to emerge and enable a myriad of IoT use cases. 

If you are thinking about selecting a platform partner for your IoT based project, there are a few criteria you need to consider before solid decision-making. 

Regulation of IoT devices

Today, in the present time, there are more devices connected to the internet than humans. This clearly shows the upward trend. Data says that, more than 75 billion internet based devices will be connected by the end of 2025. IoT has been adopted within multiple applications and is being used across industries or IIoT, enterprises--smart cities and waste management, healthcare, etc.

The overall adoption of IoT is providing companies the much-required agility, efficiency, and scalability. All combined together are providing a competitive advantage to businesses. Things are going North for IoT and vendors who provide a versatile IoT platform to help these companies get on the IoT bandwagon.

Taking the build vs buy decision

There are chances that things might get a little overwhelming if you fail to define your expected outcomes before choosing the right platform partner. Some of the pointers you should jot down are: What kind of data are you processing, which systems need to be integrated, and what kind of insights do you wish to generate? 

Asking the right questions can help you arrive at the right place, which is: whether to build or to buy? Think on critically evaluating various components separately, including device type, communication, cloud services, applications, and cross-layer security.

There can be some components which you may have to build from scratch and for others, it can be managed with the IoT solutions provider company. It depends entirely on the cost of ownership. Cost of ownership is the upfront fee to procure the platform, service fee, customization charges, and the cost of upgrades to adapt to dynamic business ecosystem. 

Is the platform scalable enough

The IoT vendor that you choose should be flexible when it comes to aligning its technologies with your legacy architecture. Make sure there are no limitations and that their technology should be easier to deploy without causing any delays. 

Many vendors will speak about flexibility but not all of them are equipped enough to offer it. The number of devices is increasing, due to that, you will definitely require a lot of customization and personalization. 

The vendor that you choose should be transparent about how extensible the platform is and whether there is adequate scope to add new features without hampering the existing system.

Is the platform capable enough to handle huge queries?

There is no doubt that the number of connected devices continues to grow, and will keep on going. This will pose the need for scalability more than ever. In fact, this might even become a prinary concern for most enterprises.. 

This will also mean that the costs that come associated with data management and hardware, will continue to rise with every added device. You need to keep the amount of scalability clear with the vendor. Ask them what is the highest they can offer.

Are they competent enough to handle complexities which more number of devices bring along. The  agility and ability of the vendor are of critical importance.

Do they offer real-time monitoring and data analytics

The ecosystem of data analytics is heavily crowded, and the right vendor at the right time can be all you need to break from the pack. There are four main things when it comes to IoT: things, data, people, and processes. 

With the help of networked connections, vendors are able to understand their relationships better and present insights that can take businesses to the next level. With real-time data and actionable insights, vendors can alert you about the issues that were not even there on your radar and help make more informed, intelligent decisions.

Conclusion

The entire arena of IoT is thriving, and is soon going to become the Internet of Everything. Working seamlessly with these connected smart devices can accelerate the businesses effectively. There are always pointers and directions one can follow, the final decision rests in your hand.

IoT and CRM, the buzz words of the 21^st century, are now a reality and would soon bring the great industrial revolution across the world. With the advancements in technology and the internet, it’s not only humans who are connected via the internet, but also the devices which are getting connected through this marvel technology.

 IoT(internet of things) as a game-changer is becoming a crucial technology in different industries and integrating innovative ways to bring success to an organization.

As per a report by Gartner, there will be around 20 billion IoT devices by 2020.

IoT and CRM

IoT is the connection of the devices via internet while CRM is the collection of customer’s data through data mining, giving useful insight into the customer behavior for segmenting the market and targeting the campaign effectively. With the empowerment by IoT, CRM helps to manage relationships with the customer and facilitates in achieving the goal of an organization.

As per another report by Gartner, CRM will be the heart of the digital initiatives for many years to come.

Who mainly benefits from CRM?

• Small businesses looking for rapid growth: CRM can take off the burden from the IT management team by automating the business process. It further helps the employees to keep the focus on the critical areas which needs human intervention.
• Top industry leaders looking for large scale solutions: It simplifies and improves the complex engagements with a customer. Some of the top-level executives like CEOs, CIOs, CMOs require advanced tools to streamline the business and technical process of an organization and with a wide range of CRM tools it can be scaled to meet the requirements of any organization.

It should be acknowledged that with IoT, CRM can evolve to a much developed and advanced version of the technology. The combination can help in making sense of the past enterprise data, and connecting it with the real-time data through the “devices.” The combined technology can help all the departments across the organization, be it sales, marketing, or customer service.

Find out some of the best results which businesses can achieve through this integration:

1. Optimized customer service:

Have you ever thought of, fixing the errors before the customer notices it!!!!

No product in the market is entirely error-free. For a marketer, it is a nightmare when a customer complains about their product and that too on a widely-used social media platform. It can hurt a company’s reputation as negative publicity spreads fast like the wildfire of Amazon. This scenario can be easily evaded with predictive analysis, and with the right integration of CRM and IoT. It helps to push away the major lapses, which can demotivate a customer in purchasing further services or products of the same brand.

 Majority of the manufacturers are already reaping the benefits of connecting their CRM with the IoT devices. As they are partly responsible if a product does not provide the service as per the expectations of a customer, they can make the product 100% efficient with the right collection of the customer data and the product specifications needed by the customer.

Customer service as one of the essential support to generate high revenue for the organization needs an advanced version of the technology, which helps to understand the customer with the right information.  IoT with CRM is a perfect guide in this circumstance as it is the right combination of technology and customer relationship management process of the organization.

 As businesses vie up for the same customer, the one providing the best and optimized customer service will be surely a winner in this race.

2. Increased sales:

The consumer market has evolved over the years, and customers are highly valuing service over others, before making the final decision. An efficient service, which involves providing precise solutions to the business challenges of the customers at the right time, significantly improvises the business process and increase sales.

An increasing number of organizations are leveraging IoT technology to increase sales opportunities.

3. Next-generation CX: Customer experience (CX) is the sum of the customer journey throughout the business cycle with your organization. IoT and CRM pave the path for the next-generation CX as the IoT related data which provide predictive analysis enables proactive support leading to some of the best customer experiences. By using customer information on the location, preference, status, and others, the problem can be predicted and resolved at the right time.

4. Omnichannel in-store experience: CRM and IoT can provide an immersive and omnichannel in-store experience. Store owners can know what the customer is looking for, what are his preferences, etc. It would also help in suggesting the products which the customer might purchase.

5. Customer retention: As CRM provides the complete customer data, it can help in better understanding of your customers. The IoT data and customer data build up a unique combination in streamlining the marketing approach and targeting the existing customer. The whole process helps to retain the existing customer, a challenge in the current market scenario.

What are the benefits of IoT and CRM integration?

It influences customer engagement to a great extent and provides:

• A higher degree of personalization
• Molding of the marketing process
• Helping to change the prices as per the demand
• Higher revenue and sales for the organization
• Increased customer satisfaction

Conclusion:

 As an organization, one can discover advanced ways of connecting with the customers, when IoT and CRM are enabled to work together as a connected enterprise.

 IoT is the new channel which holds great promise for CRM. The small and mid-sized businesses, along with the large enterprises equally, could reap the benefits of this amalgamation. The interaction of the devices with intelligent systems opens up a complete new world for delivering personalized services and exceptional support.