The Data of Things

"What do you write about?"

I've been trying to explain this blog to a few people and have been having trouble coming up with a decent elevator pitch.  "The Internet of Things is..." and that's where I get stuck.  In my second post of all time, I tried defining it and ended up with "whatever I say it is."  Which is fine, but maybe not that helpful, even for me.  Today, I want to take another crack at it.

The formal definition if you type "What is the Internet of Things?" into Google is:

"...a proposed development of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data..."



Of course, I take issue with much of this because, well, that's who I am.  Firstly, 'proposed development'.  Who proposed this?  Is there a formal working document with standards and a governing body?  Most definitely not.  There are standards.  Too many standards.  Which means that there are no real standards.  And that means that there is no proposal.  I would change that to 'loose trend'; true, there are many companies developing things that are marketed as part of the 'Internet of Things', but without formal standards, there cannot be formal development.

Now we have:

"... a loose trend of the Internet in which everyday objects have network connectivity, allowing them to send and receive data..."

This is better and, IMHO, more accurately reflects the reality of the IoT.  But, while I feel that this is complete, it does not speak to the goals.  Even without working standards and proposals and whatnot, there can still be goals.  In fact there have to be in order to explain the value of the IoT.  This definition does not tell anyone why they want to learn, install, invest or otherwise be involved in the IoT.  It is hinted at in that last bit: "...send and receive data...", but that hopes that the reader sees an inherent value in data.  That is not a given.

Data only helps

Data is not a goal in and of itself.  It is a means to that goal.  Many articles have been written reminding us that it is not the data that is collected but what we do with that data.  For example:

• You own a farm.  Farming is high volume, low margin.  With that in mind, you might want to know where you can be more efficient and thereby cut costs and increase your dollars per acre and decrease your cost per acre.  To know that, you will need to know about the soil's consistency and nutrient mix, but not on an acre resolution.  No, you need it on a per plant resolution.  This will allow you to target your fertilizer more accurately instead of spreading it over the whole plot and hoping.  Big Ag is already doing much of that, but the costs to increase this may be getting in their way.
• You own a building.  Here, the IoT can help with two things: efficiency and security.  Which of your tenants are abusing your HVAC and lighting the most?  Connected switches and motion sensor can help determine this and then, with smart vents and thermostats, act upon that data.  Which ones are in the building when?  And in which rooms?  ID cards get some of this, but the resolution is "in the building" usually and not down to "in this room".  Having this data can help your tenants control their time clocks and maybe reduce theft and industrial espionage.
• You own a home.  Which often means that you have kids.  Kids leave lights on.  Kids leave doors unlocked.  You probably do those things yourself.  IoT means that you can turn the lights off, lock the doors and such based on whose phone is in the house.  At the end of the month, you can hold an accounting with the electrical bill and match it up to the data from your system for any infractions.

Less tactics, more strategy

Those are merely the obvious use cases.  It does not talk to the rise of voice interaction within these system: the farmer talking to his system to "start the tractor and load the fertilizer," trusting that based on the data that the right fertilizer will be loaded in the right hoppers so that, as he drives over his land, the right amount of each is deposited.  If he even drives.  

It does not talk to how Augmented Reality will change the landscape of our worlds, showing data on top our our world.  The building owner now being able to know the health of his HVAC system through shading of the rooms, having floating name tags for each occupant that include why they are in the building.

These, and a thousand more reasons, are why I write about the Internet of Things.  Make that at least 24 billion reasons.