Internet of Things

Every Device

Connected to the Cloud

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming an extremely hot topic amongst entrepreneurs, investors, manufacturers and recently with technologists. I've been looking at this space for a little over 18 months now, initially using the concept to drive LED lighting as both an information source and a functional lighting component. Actually, it was this work that indirectly led to the business I am currently pursuing, but more about that in a separate article. This is a hot area within the technology space and is likely to continue to gain momentum through 2010 and for several years to come.

This post got a little longer than I thought so it is now broken into two separate posts, Parts I and II.

What is the Internet of Things?

I've seen it described as the Internet of Things, the Cloud of Devices, Web of Things and various other cool marketing names but I think one of the best descriptions is simply: When your fridge orders your groceries. Obviously, this concept represents a much broader landscape of devices than just your refrigerator or even your kitchen appliances. In the broadest definition IoT represents real world objects being connected to and accessible through the cloud, the real world objects include all the usual suspects like cellular phones, laptop computers, pagers but also includes HVAC systems, refrigerators, televisions, medical devices, sensors, the list goes on and on.

What are things?

The Internet of things projects that almost everything will be connected to the cloud, all the way down to individual items that one wouldn't think a connection to the cloud wouldn't make sense. The picture above represents multiple devices but notice to the far top right the wine bottle? IoT ultimately includes individual items that can be tracked in real-time via RFID and wireless communications. Consider that a wine bottle could communicate its location and condition in real-time though the web, seems crazy but with nanoscale technologies this is becoming more and more feasible. Its even possible for these devices to use pager networks to communicate through as opposed to WiFi or 3G/4G, this substantially reduces the cost of communications and makes tracking individual low-cost items a mid-term possibility.

In order to further define the possibilities I've created a list of things below, while not all of these items are currently connected to the cloud, they are all in the midst of making the transition.

• Information appliances: computers, laptops, portable, servers, etc.
• Mobile appliances: Cell phones, PDAs, cameras, scanners, printers, DVD players, tablets, netbooks, medical devices, etc.
• Mobile devices: Cars, trucks, cargo containers, tankers, ships, planes, trains, etc.
• Stationary devices: Appliances, tools, machinery, HVAC, lighting, industrial systems, medical devices, etc.
• Sensors: Environmental, biological, contaminant, disaster, ecological, etc.

This isn't an exhaustive list but it does represent the obvious targets for this taking advantage of this concept. Microprocessors and micro-controllers of every variety (8, 16,32 and 64 bit) are coming alive with the ability to send and receive communications over some type of communication network.

What are some of the applications?

One of the applications has already shown up in higher end automobiles like BMW, it represents the ability of a device manufacturer to remotely monitor, troubleshoot and potentially repair that device. The concept is still early in its development but holds the promise of becoming a ubiquitous service across multiple groups of electronic products, devices and appliances. Imagine your washing machine proactively indicating when a heating element is burning out, and not just to you but directly to the manufacturer or service provider so they can make repairs or adjustments.

The idea of smart appliances has been around for decades, in the 50s it was thought we would have a kitchen of devices that would handle everything from preparation to cleaning. The reality, while still a ways off is actually quite a bit more appealing then the dream kitchen of yesteryear. Consider a refrigerator that knows your families eating habits, understands your health requirements and can talk directly to retailers for provisioning of groceries and other perishables! All the individual capabilities and technologies required to make this happen are already in place, someone just has to do it and they will, soon.

The consumer isn't the only one to benefit from this, all types of industries will see their way onto the platforms and into the ecosystems provided by IoT. As technology has done in the past, businesses will benefit from the increased productivity and reduced costs. Just as the consumer benefits from the washer knowing when something is going wrong so does the manufacturer from a support, quality control and service point of view. It is just as likely that new business models and service offerings will be created a result of these technologies, future stimulating this revolution.

The last application I'll mention here is the obvious, knowing where things are and in some cases something about their condition. Today this is used primarily in the automobile industry where your vehicle can be tracked and located via satellite (if you pay for the service). The Internet of thing will take this to a whole new level, where because of nanotechnology you'll be able to track your valuables, your wallet, your individual credit cards! This may sound ridiculous or like something in the distant future but nanoscale engineering is making incredible progress on the underlying technologies with many already in place.

How will it work?

This won't take the form of a detailed technical overview but instead a high-level description of the various building blocks that will be used and how they might be put together to form both a business and technical infrastructure. As always, some aspects are moving fast while others are slower. Communications technology continues to shrink in scale and come down in price yet RFID, after years of manufacturing, is still too cost prohibitive for general use. That said, things are starting to level out a bit, the advent of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS were all required prerequisites to support the Internet of things.

In order to be on the Internet there has to be communications established between the device(s) and some resource in the cloud to handle the interactions, there are a plethora of options available to support wireless communications although some devices will still be wired. The National Smart Power Grid will ultimately play a major role in not just providing the communications infrastructure but also some of the intelligence, this is however a long way off. Between now and then we'll continue to leverage the infrastructure already in place, this includes the national pager networks, national cellular networks, wifi hot spots and of course traditional physical connections. Adding hardware components to support any of these communications technologies is relatively inexpensive and available now, so a fundamental component for IoT is already in place.

Computing on the edges of the network is a question that each device manufacturer will ultimately have to address if they are to support IoT. The issue is how much actual computing should be done by the devices themselves versus resources on the network, that ultimately depends several factors. To illustrate the question consider the example of the washing machine and its ability to sense a heating coil going bad, the washing machine can know this in one of two ways: local intelligence, remote intelligence. In the case of local intelligence, the washing machine would require a microprocessor capable of supporting software, this increases cost of the device but minimizes communications. In the case of remote intelligence the washing simply collects data (temperature of the coils) and sends it to a resource in the cloud that calculates the coils condition. The reality is that most solutions will be some combination of both local and remote intelligence, again depending on the device and its operations.

Company: Pachube and the Internet of Things

Regardless of where the bulk of the intelligence is located (local, remote) the devices will need to communicate with resources in the cloud, this is very likely to be done through web services as they are perfectly suited for this type of interaction. Web services or what older programmers would call APIs are at the heart of how the devices will send, receive and process information. Continuing with the washing machine example, when data form the machine needs to be moved into the cloud a very simple call to an appropriate web service will collect the data from the machine, store in some database and possibly send instructions back to the machine. Another model might expose the washing machine as an addressable endpoint with a supporting web service that can be directly queried and even sent instructions.

The web services are fundamental enablers for the new paradigms previously mentioned like Saas, PaaS and IaaS which are themselves critical to supporting IoT in that they offer alternatives to traditional computing models where the costs would be extremely prohibitive. This is part of the reason why IoT hasn't moved farther faster, the infrastructure and fundamental technologies were not in place until very recently. One can imagine an unlimited number of cool services and applications that will evolve out of this, as a developer this is something to stay aware of.

In Part II...

The second part of this post details the types of information that will be exchanged between the devices and the cloud, some of the implications, who is currently in this game and finally the role of the citizen scientist and the impact non-professionals are likely to have on this evolution.