Internet of Things

Everyday Things That Connect

So what does my refrigerator, my microwave, my laptop all have in common? Well, they all connect to the internet. This is what we call the Internet of Things: my everyday things that didn't used to connect to the internet now connect to the internet.

Here's some examples of what we'd use Internet of Things for. For instance, streaming media devices like TVs and speakers. Health care stuff and medical devices and scales. We could use it for home appliances. We could use it for home assistance, deadbolts, light bulbs. We can use it for switches, doorbells, home automation devices. We could use it for exercise equipment. Vehicles are coming with more and more features on it now where it's interconnected. We have wearable devices. We have things like security systems, IP cameras, security cameras. We are automating factory floors with it, and SCADA is one of those things that allows us to automate factory floors, to collect data and then act upon that data. And then we also have security systems, thermostats. So there's just a whole bunch of different applications that we could apply this to.

What Counts as IoT

So the definition of IoT is networking devices that traditionally haven't been networked. So our computer is not a good example; however, our refrigerator or washer and dryer are examples of it. So other examples might be microwaves, garage doors, deadbolt locks. And the purpose of it is to gather information, for interactions that we have with it, for automating different things, for remote control of different lights and that type of thing.

Most of this stuff has some sort of firmware that's on it. There's some sort of firmware developed specifically for the hardware that you're talking about. And there's lots of apps, like home automation apps, that will integrate into this.

I find it entertaining. There's a ton of productivity uses for it. For instance, this whole thing that I have here is all automated, and with a touch of the button I can start transitioning and turn off lights and turn on other lights. So this is just one example here. And this is how I switch between my two cameras back and forth, and if I want to switch back, then with a touch of a button I can switch back. So this is just one example of some automation that can happen and transition between all of these. So I found it to be super convenient.

Drawbacks

Some drawbacks: there's some privacy and security concerns, because when you're talking about things like the Echo Dots and with the Google Home systems and Siri and all of that, they're listening to you for their cues, and so there's some concerns over privacy and security. There's some interoperability issues — that means that when you have different equipment, sometimes getting them to work together can be a little bit frustrating and difficult and time consuming, although that's getting better and better.

Examples Around the House

So what are some examples of the Internet of Things? Well, I have my laptop here, and that's not actually an example of Internet of Things, because it's a traditional computer and so we would typically think that that's connected to the internet. My refrigerator would be an example, and I'm not going to haul it up here as an example, but I do have a microwave here that actually does interconnect with my network and can connect to the internet. It's Alexa enabled, so it will actually respond to me and we'll have certain features that Alexa will give me.

What else is an Internet of Things? Well, here I have an outlet here that I can plug into the wall and control with my laptop or with my phone. So that's been really handy; I've got lots of these throughout the house. Another thing is my garage door. I can link my garage door to the whole system, so I can open and close it and monitor what's happening, if it's open and closed, which is really handy when I drive away and think, oh, did I close the garage door? Then I can get on my phone and find out if I did or not.

Here's a lock to the front door, so this is a deadbolt lock to the front door, so I can lock the front door, and I have that connected to my network. I also have a Ring doorbell, which has a camera on it, and when you click on this it will ring, and then I actually have a little speaker for it so I can plug this anywhere in the home, so I have that available.

I have my TVs, so these two TVs back here are all connected to my network, so that's an example of it. I also have a couple of these Fire Sticks, and I've got a Chrome streaming device, and so I've got a bunch of these devices that connect to my TVs. And I have about seven TVs in my home that are all interconnected with my network. And then I have a video camera, so I have monitoring around my house so I can monitor things and make sure that everything's okay. And I also have a bunch of these Echo Dots — I have 10 of these throughout my home, so these are all speakers throughout my home, so I can tell Alexa to play some music and she'll play music throughout the house. And then I also have my thermostat here, so I can actually control the temperature of my home using my ecobee thermostat. So these would all be examples of the Internet of Things for home automation.

Inside an Echo Dot

With the Internet of Things there's lots of devices, and each one is going to have their different components, their different hardware, their different software. This one right here is an Echo Dot. Here we see it has a speaker, and then here's the circuit board to it.

So we've got this all apart now. We see that there's a speaker here. We've got some sort of covered up electronics here, so I'm not sure what is underneath here, and we also have something covered up here, so I'm not sure what these are. But my guess is one of these, probably this one right here, is the main processor unit for this board. And then this probably has something to do, my guess is, with the power and sending the signal back and forth to the speaker, and probably has several components within here. We can see the other side as well — just a capacitor and some other little pieces of equipment.