Enterprise IoT

Part I. IoT Application Domains and Case Studies

Part I of this book focuses on selected IoT application domains and provides detailed illustrative use cases for each one. It is virtually impossible to provide a complete and holistic overview of all possible applications for the IoT, because the IoT will affect nearly every aspect of our lives; application use cases are found within the areas of healthcare, smart homes, smart buildings, smart cities, energy, agriculture, transportation and connected vehicles, the military, logistics and supply chain, retail and wholesale, manufacturing, mining, and so on. The opportunities seem unlimited, and many application domains either overlap or have strong interdependencies. Machina Research’s approach to mapping out the different applications and their overlaps on a high level is presented in Figure I-1. From a forecasting perspective, this already represents a detailed taxonomy of IoT use cases, and the underlying forecasts by Machina Research contain an even greater level of detail, spanning 223 different applications and market segments.

Figure I-1. Machina Research’s taxonomy for the IoT

While this is an appropriate level of detail for forecasting our connected future world, the reality is likely to be far more fragmented. Even relatively standard and well-defined IoT applications can be implemented in radically different ways. Consider ...