What is the Internet of Things and what does it mean for India?

“Internet of Things”, a term that you must have come across, arousing your inquisition over the exact meaning behind it. In short, a world of wonder or a womb to the entire technology development.  But let’s dive a little bit more into this to make it easier to wrap your head around IoT. Generally, the Internet of Things is like that Iron man movie where every normal machinery becomes exclusively interesting and intelligent. The moto is to make every network of devices that connect to the web and/or normal machines “smart.”Imagine you stressed out at work staring at the clock and wondering when the 16:55 turns to a 17:00, estimating the exact amount of time it will take to get home and switch on the AC, make that hot coffee. Now imagine you reaching home to find a cool house and hot coffee brewing already stimulated just by the click of a button on some app on your way home. So this coffee maker and AC becomes part of the Internet of Things.
This technology may extend to all sorts of appliances. Be it industrial objects or household ones, the era of application development has begun. Especially in our country, these advances are happening like a whistle-stop. Deloitte reckons that by 2020, there shall be 1.9 billion units in India and that the market value will estimate to  $9 billion.    Soon you’ll be waking up to the question of “What’s new ?” because there is a long list of surprises awaiting you.


Where are we?

A couple of grand events in the IoT space are mobile banking and payments, and the birth and execution of smart devices.

Over 750 million tangible, active, debit and credit cards, mobile payment options are all set to dominate over all industries in the years to come. You’ll most likely be paying with information stored on your phone or with payment apps like PayPal or Paytm. Take for example, Luminous i.e. a market pioneer of inverters manufacturing, who took their customer experience to the next level : Offering an inverter having analytics and tracking abilities, so that users can monitor their performance in real time. Airtel made this happen: They used IoT technology to collect and share data via a unbeatable mobile app, initiating a platform for proactive user-programmer interaction making inverters reliable and long lasting.

Where are we headed?

For manufacturing and automotive sectors in particular, IoT gives rise to unlimited insights at every step of production on a unit level. Every single item monitored from beginning to the end. This transparency assists progress and prevents chain reaction of the same issue. Impressive quality control like never before.

General Electric, Siemens, Cisco, and even Harley-Davidson have adopted this measures.

For our auto industry, the importance of major IoT gift, GPS can not be emphasized enough. Navigating the entire route without trouble, instant redirections in case of a wrong turn or urgent need of a pit stop. Be it road assistance or roadside assistance, the future cars may be termed as “SMART-PHONES ON WHEELS”.

Google and many other trailblazers on self-driving cars, which could be on the road by 2020. These cars eliminate the need for a driver and would allow passengers to relax or be more productive while traveling ­­– whichever they prefer.

Some of these predictions will come to pass and some won’t, but one thing is for sure – our world is about to become much “smarter.”