5 Important Components of an IoT Product

Internet of Things is one of the hottest technologies in the world. Cisco predicts that there will be around 50 billion IoT devices in the world by 2020. From simple things such as a tweeting refrigerator, to much more complex things like a Tesla car. Businesses, be it small startups or large corporations, all are flocking to create connected products that affect our lives in every way possible. But any IoT product manufacturer needs to keep these 5 essential components in mind that make up an IoT device.

1. Sensors and Actuators:

·         Sensors are devices that detect input from the physical environment and translate it into an electrical/digital signal. There are many different sensors available today to measure temperature, humidity, light, noise, pollution, pressure, torsion, tension, acceleration, position, images, magnetic fields, electric fields, etc. They used to be large, bulky and power hungry. Today they are invisible and energy efficient, whilst maintaining a high measurement precision. The technology field of actuators and robots, whether large or small, is still evolving.

2. Connectivity: 

IoT products need a medium for connecting to the internet and other devices. One of the earliest options was ZigBee. While ZigBee is a great solution for short range connectivity, it is unfit to power large-scale IoT. Today, long-range high-rate systems are well covered by current 3G and 4G cellular systems. Short-range high-rate is covered by Wi-Fi, and short-range low-rate by ZigBee and Bluetooth Low Energy. But there is an enormous need to meet IoT requirements offering low-rate long-range communication systems. A new class of technology has emerged lately, which is now generally referred to as the low power wide area networks with consuming the same costs as Wi-Fi but coverage up to 20 kilometers. But the biggest coup might be reserved for the cellular community. Cellular is becoming increasingly attractive due to their wide coverage, relatively low deployment costs, high level of security, access to dedicated spectrum, and simplicity of management. The recent developments in the Mobile World Congress 2017 in Barcelona showed the importance of 5G cellular and Long-Range Low-Power or LoRa technologies. 

3. Platform: 

The collected data must be stored and processed somewhere. These cloud-based infrastructures are called IoT Platforms. Their main job is to receive the data, store it, and process it for further use. 

4.  Analytics: 

The data received from the sensors is in the form of 1’s and 0’s. This binary language is of no use to the user. Rather, we need insights, information, and knowledge from that data. Analytics gives life to the data. Statistical tools, machine learning, and deep learning could be able to predict events and result in better decision making.

5. User Interface: 

Finally, an important component is how the data is presented to the final users. Today, most of the physical interfaces of IoT devices are able to respond to commands from a smartphone app. However, hardware interfaces such as a switch or a dial can be used. But since most of the devices are updated regularly, hardware interface can become obsolete.