Technology has impacted humans, businesses and processes in many ways in our modern society. There exists apps to solve almost every problem or challenge that people face. This has changed the way people connect, communicate and collect the information. The revolution of using apps for everything was brought to automate manual tasks wherever possible and bring control to the smartphones. So, the next obvious step was to give smartphones more power and control, by bringing the control of other devices to the smartphone as well. This is when IOT (Internet of Things) came to picture.
What is Internet of Things?
Internet of Things is one of the most powerful creations in the IT industry after mobile app development, and it is capable of connecting almost everything on the planet. The ubiquitous connectivity and communication among the objects will transform the ability to collect, analyze and distribute the data so that the insights gained can be turned into proactive actions.
Build IoT-friendly Mobile Apps
Mostly, IOT has been used for home automation, example being Philips Hue bulbs, D-link smart plugs etc. These products come with their dedicated apps to help users control these devices. There are also products which facilitate further development of IOT and the mobile apps associated with it, example being Amazon Echo, which uses a platform named Alexa, where mobile developers can add new functionalities to get more and more things automated. One of the recent example is the Alexa skill for LBB developed by my team which lets users to use LBB's platform with their voice.
Mobile Tech Trend Has Taken IoT into Mainstream Digital World
What is important to note here that smartphone is the epicentre of all that there is to do with IOT, after all IOT is all about bringing control to our hands and there is nothing that keeps our hands busy more than a smartphone does. The use of smartphones allows hardware manufactures to avoid putting a screen on their products because now they can leverage the screen of a smartphone. In addition to leveraging Smartphone's screen, gaining consumer data is another thing that manufacturers are happy about.
Spending on IoT Devices will be $3 trillion by 2020
As the appliances would be connected to a smartphone, manufacturers can easily access consumer data which can help them innovate further by making exactly what the consumers want. It is exactly this reason why hardware spending by consumers and businesses on IOT devices is projected to be almost $3 trillion by 2020.
Going forward the role of smartphones in implementing IOT is going to increase as companies strive to get real-time data to serve their customers better. It could well be a big disruption in the appliances industry, since companies implementing IOT would have a huge advantage over other companies, in designing better products for their customers.