The IoT, Internet of Things, is much talked about, but is it really important? We have some facts for you that might allow you to decide for yourself.

(click in infographic to enlarge)

Source: WebSiteGuide

Harsha Kiran has collected data from a wide range of sources to produce a survey of the current state of the IoT.  The scale of the IoT is already huge and is growing exponentially.

The accompanying blog post points out:

According to research, there are already more devices connected to the internet than the number of people on earth. According to CISCO trend forecast, there will be more than 50 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. BI Intelligence shows that there will be more than 34 billion devices and according to Gartner Inc. trend forecast there will be 20.8 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020. For this reason, the current space in IPv4 cannot hold all the addresses and hence the need to upgrade to IPv6 that can hold addresses for all atoms on the earth’s surface.

The blog post also refers to the security concerns that surround the expansion of the IoT, something discussed in our recent coverage of an ongoing contest, the  IoT Home Inspector Challenge being run by the  US  Federal Trade Commission.

The examples presented - environmental monitoring, infrastructure and energy management - are core to the Industrial Internet of Things, which has attracted the big players including GE (General Electric) with its Predix platform. 

While the infographic includes Building Automation Systems this again focuses on IoT at the large scale, whereas in fact there's a lot happening at the domestic level with people increasingly keen on smart home devices.

One statistic that is included is that more than 4.5 million developers are working on IoT applications. Even so there is still time to get involved at the initial stages. Whether on the industrial or the home front a lot of IoT is being done by embedded systems and single board computers (SBCs), with the Raspberry Pi taking a leading role. This makes it affordable and accessible to hobbyists as well as professionals.

For some ideas about how to get started in IoT see Harry Fairhead's Raspberry Pi IoT in C.

More Information

WebSiteGuide

Related Articles

Predix - A Platform for the Industrial Internet Of Things

Why The Internet Of Things Has A Problem

IoT Home Inspector Challenge 

How to Authenticate a Device in the Industrial Internet of Things 

Raspberry Pi And The IoT In C

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