Foundational Elements of an IoT Solution

Chapter 5. IoT Applications

Over the next few years, as the Internet of Things brings billions of new connected devices into the world, there is tremendous potential to unlock previously hidden insight into physical processes for both businesses and consumers. However, to access the value of all these new connected things, we require a host of new software applications that can make sense of the constant data flow.

Through embedded sensors and intelligence, we can give nerves to products, services, and operations. Now we need to think about how we’re going to process the signals from our newfound senses. We certainly can’t look at every bit of data these systems generate: information overload is already a substantial problem. Well-designed software and predictive analytics help us make some of those determinations, but we still must decide what machine and digital elements will make up the autonomic nervous system of our IoT solutions, and conversely, what will make up the somatic nervous system, requiring human intervention for critical decision-making.

Creating applications that derive value from the IoT involves much more than generating a user interface on a web or mobile device. While it’s true that some IoT software may take the form of an app that gives a user a new experience on a smart, connected product, it could also consist of a prediction from an analytics model derived through machine learning and assimilated after an examination of multitudes of data, or it could ...