Types of Internet of Things (IoT)

The main objective of Internet of Things (IoT) is

• To globally connect smart ‘things’ or ‘objects’.
• Objects are uniquely identified.
• Interoperability among the objects.

These concepts are well explained in ‘Introduction to Internet of Things’.

Internet of things (IoT) is categorized in 3 segments:

1. Industrial IoT  (IIOT)
2. Consumer IoT (CIOT)
3. Enterprise IoT (EIOT).

In 5G Americas white paper 5G-The future of IOT it is mentioning that types of IoT use cases is not so much based upon the ‘who’ or ‘where’ but the requirements for the technology implemented.

This means the segmentation is not based upon what are the equipment, devices used in the system.

Same sensors, same actuators, and all other devices may be same in all 3 cases.

The devices used in home, in office, in a factory have the same functionalities.

But segmentation is done based on requirement of features of IoT connectivity in each sectors.

Mainly these 3 categories are done based on the below requirements:

• Security
• Interoperability
• Scalability
• Precision and Accuracy
• Programmability
• Low Latency
• Reliability
• Resiliency
• Automation
• Serviceability
• Data volume
• Data throughput

Some of these characteristics we have discussed in Introduction to Internet of Things (IoT).

Security is a major concern in all three categories.

In some scenario we may require very low latency and low data throughput. In some other cases we may compromise latency up to some level, but data uses or requirement of data throughput is very high.

1.Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT):

The industrial Internet of Things (IIot) is an application of IoT in industries to modify the various existing industrial systems.IIoT links the automation system with enterprise, planning and product life cycle.

IIoT includes major industries like:

• Oil and Gas,
• Transportation,
• Manufacturing,
• Healthcare and Energy.

Accenture forecast that the Industrial IoT will reach $123 billion in 2021, attaining a CAGR of 7.3 percent through 2020(Ibid). Accenture also forecast that IIoT can add as much as $14.2 trillion to the global economy by 2030 (Ibid)

Component of IIoT:

Some integral component of Industrial IoT (IIoT) are

• Machine Learning
• Big data technology
• Machine to Machine interaction (M2M)
• Automation

Machine Learning-

Learning from the existing data and trying to make things predictive and trying to have things which are better in the future, based on current available data.

Big data technology- 

Big data means very big is size which ca not be processed with usual tools.

Big data is mainly based on 3 Vs. Those are

V- Volume of data: e.g. 500 TB per day (like in Facebook).

V- Velocity of data: e.g. trying to handle many requests per seconds (like in Google)

V-Variety of data: e.g. Problem at hand and data we will process are complex.

Machine to Machine interaction (M2M)& Automation-

Two or more machines directly interact with one another to complete some purpose or task without any human interventions.

Thus make the things possible to work in automation.

Industrial IoT (IIoT) and Industry 4.0:

The scope of Industry IoT (IIoT) borrows some features of IoT and borrows some features from vision of Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 is basically a framework for:

• Automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies.
• Cyber-physical systems, Internet of things and cloud computing.
• Smart factory.

2.Enterprise IoT (EIoT):

The ultimate need for enterprise to drive IoT is to enhance:

• Operational efficiency,
• Mitigate risk,
• Improve functional visibility,
• Ensure maximum customer engagement,
• Increases revenue streams,
• And tap into potential opportunities for growth.

For connectivity purpose-

The 5G network is capable of supporting massive devices and new services, for example

• Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB),
• Massive Machine type communication (mMTC),
• Critical communications and network operations

compared to 4G-LTE network.

5G mobile system for Enterprise IoT is trusted to provide low latency, high versatility and high throughput for large number of gadgets

Use cases:

Enterprise IoT would have the greatest impact in

• Service Operations
• Manufacturing.

These two broad groups can be further distributed into:

• Supply Chain
• Research & Development (R&D)
• Marketing and Sales
• And small segment of other parts of enterprise.

For example, manufacturing machines at the manufacturing floors are integrated with

• Enterprise resource planning (ERP),
• Customer relationship management (CRM),
• Supply chain management (SCM),
• And knowledge management (KM) applications in order to ensure utmost automation.

The results and outputs are simply the aggregated ones. Any event information gets instantaneously captured and processed in order to activate appropriate systems in time.

Any slight delay may lead to destruction. The much needed integration gets fulfilled through a host of integrators, connectors, drivers, and adaptors.

Key Drivers for Enterprise IoT:

The Enterprise IoT (EIoT) is relatively new development in the IoT sector.

Key drivers of Enterprise IoT (EIoT) are, but not limited to:

• Infrastructure optimization
• Process excellence
• Architecture assimilation
• Technology adaption and adoption
• Leverage data (internal as well as external) toward actionable insights

3.Consumer IoT (CIoT):

The IoT is changing how consumers interact with consumer electronics, enabling greater convenience for a better experience, access to data that enables them to optimize their usage, and increasing control they have over their devices.

With IoT, the world is at our fingertips.

Wearables,gadgets and gizmos, portables, implantable, handhelds, consoles, appliances, instruments, and utensils are the fast-emerging and evolving IoT products.

The number of connected devices in the hands of people in our everyday works and walks are drastically increasing.

Use cases:

• Fitness tracker,
• Smart home thermostat,
• Wi-Fi connected camera,
• Virtual reality headset,
• smart refrigerator and toaster,
• Alarm panel
• Smart glasses.

The connection between all of them is that they are often controlled by apps.

Growth of Consumer IoT (CIoT):

Consumer IoT is no more in the study state. These are already in our used cases and it is very fast growing sector of IoT.

For example, as per Statista The North America IoT consumer electronics market is predicted to increase from $90B in 2017 to $180B in 2022, attaining a CAGR of 12.25 percent.

Summary:

In this article we just touched all the categories of Internet of Things (IoT) to give a brief idea.

We will go deep in to all segments in upcoming blogs.

Thanks for reading this blog.

Your feedback, comments, suggestions or like are highly appreciated.

Ref:

5G Americas: 5G-The Future of IoT

The Internet of Things- by Pethuru Raj &Anupama C. Raman

Introduction to IoT- by Dr. Sudip Misra

Suggested Post for You:

Introduction to Internet of Things (IoT)

Pranab Hazarika

BE | MBA | PMP | IoT-Certified (IIT-Kharagpur)

www.PranabHazarika.com

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