IoT is a source of hope, confusion, and dreams. Similar concepts exist before but the full potential is beginning to emerge only now. It will become a reality as data collection options improves and high performance computing advances and is not an isolated technology, rather a complete ecosystem. This is the reason why it takes time to become mainstream and it is still evolving.
The full potential IoT depends on coming together of the following elements:
Sensors collecting data and actuators doing required tasks are not new. Gateways connecting different types of sensors and actuators is what makes IoT interesting.
- Sensors and Actuators
Sensors are the sensory system of the IoT ecosystem. It collects data about temperature, moisture, light, gas, distance, humidity, motion and many other variables. The actuators perform actions based on the collected data. It sound an alarm, open a gate, turn on sprinklers, turn off lights, send a text message and do many other things.
In large industries like manufacturing and mining, we connect many gateways and sensors.