Any day that you watch your local news TV stations and/or listen to your local radio stations, you are bound to hear that the day you are listening has been designated as “National [fill in the blank] Day” by the “[the fill-in-the-blank] Organization or Department”. In addition to the usual “national bring your child or dog to work” days, there’s a designated day for just about everything from national ‘Margarita Day’ to national ‘Suck A Salami Day’, which usually occurs on the first Tuesday of November. Unfortunately, there has not been a national take a bath or shower day or a national “take a break from buzzwords that refuse to die” day.
Today, April 9, 2019, has been designated as IoT day by the IoT Council, which initiated the concept in 2010. According to the organization, its event “has grown in scale and scope as Internet of Things is sinking into the everyday.” The council also says, “iotday is about having coffee and lunch and a chat with someone in your street as that is where you live and that is where washing machines might get connected.” I’d bet a shilling, a shekel, and a dollar that few, if any, people who own a washing machine have it located in the middle of the street where they live and connected to the Internet. I could be wrong? At any rate, today is IoT day, but you still must move your car in NY and feed the meters.
Taking a trip down memory lane, I attended Internet World at the Javits Center, NYC in 1998 and had the opportunity to see just about every home appliance sporting an Internet connection. There were refrigerators that could determine what items were low, i.e., milk, butter, cheese, salami, etc., and send an order to a grocer of choice for said depleted items and set up a convenient delivery time.
In addition to home appliances, door/window locking mechanisms, security systems, lighting systems, and more were demonstrated as being remotely controlled via the internet. Test-and-measurement equipment could be shared by design teams globally and various pieces of industrial equipment were also on tap and connected.
All these ‘things’ were connected to the ‘internet’, but no one called it the Internet of Things, it was called networking. At the time, various dedicated operating systems from a small group of software vendors were used to achieve this level of connectivity. Anyone remember Windows NT?
In brief, today we have more devices connected to the internet and to maintain interest, we’ve changed the term networking to Internet of Things, IoT for short. Since a lot of PR and marketing people went to great lengths to change that terminology, we may as well have a special day to honor their efforts. All seriousness aside, the IoT is here and here to stay, as it was back in 1998, only bigger.
When you think about it, just about anything electronic that requires control and is run by software, can most likely be connected to and controlled over the internet. That’s pretty much the easy part. Figuring out how to do it securely and reliably and then actually doing it successfully can be tricky on several levels. These concerns include interoperability, wireless connectivity, and security.
There are a great many valuable resources available to help designers, engineers, integrators, and IT professionals successfully deploy IoT devices and applications. One of the greatest resources available are the educational sessions offered at Sensors Expo. IoT has been at the heart of the expo and conference since the IoT concept was created. For example, here are a few of the IoT-focused sessions you can take advantage of at Sensors Expo 2019 in San Jose, June 25-27.
Sensors Build IoT Systems
On Tuesday, June 25, starting at 9 AM PST, Pre-Conference Symposium 5 presents the Role of Sensors in Building IoT Systems. Sensors are the key components for building any IoT application and one of the major hardware components needed to form all IoT systems. The Pre-Conference Symposium provides attendees the opportunity to learn IoT fundamentals, building blocks, and discover how sensors can be programmed to interface with IoT hardware and cloud platforms.
The session also analyzes the marketing and design aspects needed in integrating smart sensors into IoT frameworks and includes demonstrations of several IoT applications such as home automation, environmental, agriculture, health care, and Industrial 4.0 domains. The only thing you need to do to take advantage of this educational resource is register for this Pre-Conference Symposium.
Sensors On The Edge of IoT
Edge computing and edge applications, technologies that organize mass quantities of data by collecting it from individual devices located remotely (on the edge) in an IoT topology, is one of the hottest topics related to the internet, industrial internet, and the intranet of things to come. On Wednesday, June 26 at 10 AM, you can see what companies are doing with innovations and transformations at the edge of the network by attending IOT1: IoT & IIoT Transformations at the Edge. In this session you will learn how are we embracing open systems, open apis, and open standards to speed development and deployment of IoT apps at the edge.
The session will be presented by Geoff Mulligan, CTO for IIoT at JabilGeoff is a developer and consultant on IoT, Privacy and Security, a former White House Presidential Innovation Fellow, US representative to the ISO Smart and Sustainable Cities project and co-founder of Skylight Digital. Come and hear from this expert on the topic, but first you need to register for the IoT & IIoT Transformations at the Edge session.
The Wireless IoT
Everything is going wireless. No more tripping over cables and desktops covered with arrays of black spaghetti. Such is the case with most IoT apps. They are mobile and wire free. How does one get on board with a wireless IoT? Easy!
On Wednesday June 26, 2019, starting at 10 AM, take advantage of some excellent sessions in the IoT & Wireless Track at Sensors Expo 2019. Session topics include IoT & IIoT Transformations at the Edge, Using Battery-Free Wireless Sensors to Enable IoT, Locating & Sensing in IoT Applications, Wireless Industrial Sensors: A Journey of Innovation & Discovery, and Introduction to Bluetooth Mesh Networking. Once again, one cannot partake of these fountains of knowledge unless one registers to attend Sensors Expo 2019.
How To Celebrate IoT Day
In hesitant summation, how does one celebrate a holiday the magnitude of IoT Day? There’s no traditional dance, food, or drink associated with this day. Whatever is a techno geek, engineer, designer, and EOEM to do?
Well, if you have not surmised the obvious, I’ll reiterate: REGISTER FOR SENSORS EXPO & CONFERENCE 2019. It’s that simple. Oh, be forewarned, if you do decide to create a traditional dance, culinary dish, and/or potent libation to celebrate IoT day, please do not perform, ingest, and/or partake of these until after you register for Sensors Expo & Conference, just in case you get too consumed by the rapture of the day. Oh yes, PR and marketing people can celebrate IoT Day by creating new buzzwords for us to ponder next year when IoT Day might come around again. ~MD
About the author
Mat Dirjish is the Executive Editor of Sensors magazine. Before coming on board, he covered the test and measurement and embedded systems market for Electronic Products Magazine, after which he spent thirteen years covering the electronic components market for EE Product News and Electronic Design magazines. He also has an extensive background in high-end audio/video design, modification, servicing, and installation.