What is Internet of Things (IoT)?

As an organiser of IoTSG meetup, and Founder/Chief Enabler of ATCAlliance, a Startup in IoT Business and Project Management Consulting, I have organised and attended many event in IoT  space. I have been asked by many individuals, "What is IoT?".

While the world  going crazy about IoT (with new definitions of "I" such as Intention, Interaction, Improvement, Intellectual etc); new products and platforms launched and pushed every second day; the basic question "What is IoT" still not answered or explained to a layman- it seems- or rather it is getting more confused now.

I have worked in Industry Automation, Designed complex M2M, and worked in Solutions Integration companies; so I will try to simplify  the definition of IoT, in a hope a normal person understands it.

IoT is an application or a solution that go thru 3 stages to solve a particular problem, where Internet is just a protocol for the communication.

1.) Sensing: Sensing is basically a method to collect necessary data as required by the application to solve a certain problem.

2.) Analysis: Analysis is data (sensed) cleansing, mining and processing via a rules engine. 

3.) Actuation: Actuation is the final intended output.

Some Applications have fourth element as well:
4.) Feedback loop:A feedback loop is for machine learning applications, some or entire data of Actuation goes back to the Analysis stage.

Examples:

• An industrial robot Senses proximity, acceleration, direction etc, and then Analyse the data via an Industrial PLC to Actuate the motors in desired fashion.

• Social media platform like Facebook Senses your personal data checkins, comments etc, and then Analyse this personal data via a machine learning rules engine to Actuate (Push) the adverts, trends, and other information on your wall.

• A healthcare wearable sense your heartbeat, blood pressure etc, Analyse this data based on recommended healthcare practises, and Actuate (push) the results to you to educate you about your current health status.
• I am riding my Harley Davidson on the road Sensing all the traffic data, behaviour, thenAnalysing it with my Brain Engine (Neural Network), and Actuating the decision to, brake or shift gear or shift handle bar. I am an IoT. I apply feedback loop too.

There are numerous applications. IoT is not  a product or a platform, it is a Solutions Integration. To solve an Intended problem.

IoT should be approached bottom up- from Problem perspective, and same time looked Top Down- from Technology and Business perspective.

When a right approach and values are understood and agreed by the stakeholders, only then an IoT Solution will be successful.

In this race of trillions of dollars IoT industry, only the Solution Integrator  who understand the business will win. 

Lastly, in my view, "Internet" in IoT is just a protocol for communication,  you can define "I" as you like. As far as there are ways to connect the devices(possibly a new approaches will be invented in future), so let me just call it  AllThingsConnected.

Look forward for more on a right approach of a Solution Integration.