Nowadays we want everything to be smart. Everyone has heard about smart watches, smart cars, and smart homes. The Internet of Things is booming, and it is not a pipe dream anymore. The IoT technology is often used in many industries such as manufacturing, education, transportation, energy, financial services and healthcare.
Sensors, communication devices, networking chips are growing explosively and becoming inexpensive. They are supposed to connect to the Internet devices, for example, smartwatches, and a system of automation. Thus they receive and send different kinds of data: temperature, pulse rate, sounds, etc. A system of automation stores, organizes and processes data before presenting it to a user.
Many analysts anticipate the expansion and development of IoT. It will change the way people interact with the material world. By 2019 approximately 60 percent of consumers are expected to have connected technology in their homes; most of them will buy wearable technology. According to McKinsey, by 2025 IoT will make approximately $11 trillion a year in economic value.
What is the Internet of Things?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of interconnected computing devices, vehicles, mechanical and digital machines, home appliances, and other objects with built-in unique identifiers (sensors, electronics, software) that enable them to receive and exchange data over a network without requiring human interference.
Types of IoT software
The Internet of Things development is one of the most discussed tech topics of the twenty-first century. However, IoT expands far beyond consumer and home applications. Manufacturing, oil, logistics, agriculture, mining and other industries have also applied IoT systems to increase productivity. The Internet of Things (IoT) is of great value to business and industry due to digitizing internal operations and creating new digital products and business models.
Industrial tech companies including IBM, Cisco, and General Electric have been following the IoT trend, considering the development of the Internet of Things to be a basis for their business. A lot of startups are developing networking infrastructure, cloud platforms, sensors, and machine learning software in order to get the necessary data, thus meeting the needs of heavy industry.
IT specialists distinguish two main types of IoT software: Enterprise or Industrial IoT and Consumer IoT. The distinction between Consumer IoT and Industrial IoT is mainly in the types of applications, devices, and technologies that are used to achieve a purpose. Examples of Industrial IoT devices are beacons, RFID Tags, sensors, etc, while consumer IoT devices include wearables, healthcare devices, connected cars, and smart homes.
Anyway, it is still IoT, and despite the differences, there are a lot of overlaps between its types. However, people invest mostly in the Industrial Internet of Things, and thus the amount of apps IoT development companies create for enterprises is quite numerous.
Examples of IoT applications and software
Smart Headphones
Amazon is of great importance in the Internet of Things development. The company launched the Dash Wand in the UK and managed to obtain a patent for smart headphones in America. This smart device has a noise-canceling technology that suppresses the noise consumers don’t want to hear and cancels this function when a clear sound is heard.
The previous technology allowed a user to turn on or off the noise-canceling function. Smart headphones can block the noise of trains and airplanes. However, they can isolate consumers from sounds they may need to hear, for example, a beeping car, somebody calling their name, or an ambulance. The new technology can analyze sounds and select which ones to let in; the headphones may have pre-set keywords that a user can choose from the list.
Google Assistant
Google Assistant is a personal smart assistant that is controlled by voice and can be engaged in a two-way conversation. Before extending to Android devices Google Assistant was available on Google Pixel smartphones and Google Home. Now it is available for not only for the hardware of Google but also for different kinds of devices, from phones and headphones to cars.
The voice commands “Hey, Google” and “OK, Google” allow you to search, send messages, make calls, check the weather, recognize songs, etc. Google Assistant is similar to Siri and Amazon Alexa, but it is capable of understanding context and thus reacting in an appropriate way.
Smart Home devices
- One of the most popular Internet of Things devices is a smart thermostat. It is connected to the Internet and automatically adjusts the temperature in your house depending on whether you are at home or not or whether you feel cold or hot. Thus, this device will considerably cut your heating and cooling expenses. Due to the mobile app you can create schedules and change the temperature. If something goes wrong with your heating or cooling system, you will receive an alert.
- You can plug a smart plug into a regular outlet and use a power cord from any device. It also offers a function of creating a schedule you could turn it on or off by hitting a button on your smartphone. Some models of a smart plug can monitor the amount of energy used by your devices. Using the mobile app, you can turn them on or off, and thus, your house will become more energy-saving.
- Smart Bulbs differ greatly from regular ones. They can change colors and even match the colors of a picture you upload via the mobile app. You can set a schedule for them to turn on or off and even sync them with your music for a party. This IoT smart home device, like many others, can also cut your expenses on energy.
- Smart Lock will make you forget about your keys as it can automatically unlock when you get home and lock after you close the door. You can give access to your house to your relatives or friends by giving them guest keys with an expiration date. In case you forget your phone there is a function of setting a code to open the door. Moreover, you can see the activity and give access to your house remotely with your smartphone.
- Modern security systems combine video, audio, night vision, motion detection, a siren, and allow customers a remote control from their smartphones.
- Smart Pet Feeder is an indispensable assistant for busy masters. It can determine the right type and amount of food for your pet. If you are away from home, the device can set up delivery of food. Thus, you can always control your pet’s food consumption.
Healthcare devices
- The Health Patch is a smart patch worn on the chest that can be effectively used for ambulatory care as it measures accurately heart rate, ECG, respiratory rate, temperature and other indicators and sends them right to your doctor’s smartphone app. This device can help physicians to monitor their patients’ health condition and prescribe them treatment remotely and also prevent potential problems.
- Lively Personal Emergency Response System can provide a great assistance to those who may have health problems. It is a smartwatch connected to the central hub that will alert relatives or an ambulance that a person wearing the device may need help.
The Internet of Things for Automotive
- Connected cars are vehicles using sensors and Internet connection that provide automatic monitoring driving behavior, driving related alerts, diagnostic, and entertainment.
- OBD means On-Board Diagnostic. This system lets external electronics interact with a computer system in the car. Having OBD equipment, you can easily diagnose different mechanical problems, make your car go faster, and boost its performance.
- Automatic Car Tracking Adapter can track such information about your car as location, fuel consumption, hours driven, mileage, etc., thus making your car more efficient.
- CityFlow Commute is a Mindconnect’s route planner solution that can build an optimal automobile route taking into account the time and day of the week, situation on the road like traffic jams or closures.
- A Vehicle Fleet Monitoring Solution is an app monitoring, analyzing and optimizing a vehicle performance by collecting such data from physical devices as speed, the amount of emitted exhaust, fuel consumption, etc.
How to create IoT software?
What is the best way of building IoT software? Where to start when building IoT applications? What skills should an IoT developer have? A decent IoT app development company knows the answers to these questions and can offer you best quality technologies.
The basis of the Internet of Things applications is the things themselves. The things IoT uses are usually edge devices which can connect to the Internet, to other things or to an Internet gateway device.
The next level of the IoT development is software and infrastructure running in a data center or a cloud and organizing data from other devices. The IoT software usually also manages and updates things. At the analytics level there comes processing of the organized data. And at the end-user level, an app is ready for use.
It is quite reasonable to consider developing IoT applications on top of a ready-made Internet of Things platform as it is significantly time- and work-saving. Many IoT app development companies offer such kinds of platforms as ThingWorx, Mnubo, Bug Labs, and other IoT solutions.
The Raspberry Pi hardware is great for building the Internet of Things projects. Having a tiny inexpensive platform, it offers a complete Linux server.
Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are working on the IoT strategy to improve their cloud platforms. Android Things is an Android-based embedded OS for the Internet of Things released by Google. It is an effort to connect devices and the cloud. The OS supports Bluetooth Low Energy and Wi-Fi.
Bluetooth Low Energy was introduced in 2004 and has become an IoT driven personal area network technology. Being much more power-conserving than its predecessor, Bluetooth LE is designed for Internet-connected devices that are used in healthcare, security, tracking, fitness, entertainment, etc. It enables them to exchange data with smartphones and tablets.
Bluetooth Low Energy is relevant for both Industrial and Consumer IoT due to its long battery life, low cost, and ease of deployment. It greatly facilitates wireless data communication between different devices.
What should be considered in the Internet of Things application development?
In order to meet customers’ needs, IoT software development companies should implement some important practices for the IoT software development as well as for the IoT web development.
Testing should be a top priority. Only then you can get a high-quality product as a result. If an IoT application is too complicated, the software can be susceptible to errors. Moreover, if something goes wrong in the interaction of a hardware device, a sensor, and an app, the system can fail completely.
Continuous monitoring in the Internet of Things software development is a must for preventing errors and failures.
Responsibility must be taken by management. Analytics have to assure quality and assess software risks as any negligence in IoT application development can cause security problems can be very expensive to correct.
Competence in the Internet of Things app development is of great importance. Choose the company that will offer you the best quality IoT solution. Contact us! We know all about IoT software.
