Connect the World with IOT

IOT

You’ve likely noticed over the past 6 years that many of your friends, family and colleagues have been using smart lightbulbs, cameras, plug sockets and door locks. Each of these have their own perks such as changing the temperature of your house from across the country or securing your property against intruders. You may even have some of these around your own home and wonder how it’s all possible. How can I change and configure an item from half way across the world when I’m literally thousands of miles away? Excellent question!

The smart devices you have in your home are linked to the internet either directly or through hubs. This enables you to manage these devices without the need of being in close proximity. Additionally, it allows you to make changes no matter where you are. This is the Internet of Things or more commonly referred to as IOT. IOT is the future of all consumer electronics however that’s not a reason to ignore them for your business. Here are some facts that will change your mind:

Microsoft have estimated that by 2022 they would have invested 5 billion dollars into their IOT platform. By 2021 Gartner predict that 3 billion dollars would have been spent on securing IOT. And by next year (2020), ATKearney estimate that IOT will generate 344 billion dollars in potential revenue with two 2 trillion dollars of increase productivity. All whilst reducing costs by 177 million dollars. If these figures don’t change your mind, we’re not sure what will. We’ve provided a worked example below to give you a better idea on how this can work

Scenario

An expo is taking place in a large convention centre where multiple vendors, customers and contacts are coming to meet to discuss all the things you’re interested in. The convention centre team have provided everyone with a smart bracelet to capture information through the event. The bracelet tracks everyone’s location, allows users to submit feedback and receive push notifications. Each of these devices are connected to an Azure IOT Hub which will process all the data for expo.

Story

You’ve just arrived at the event and need to sign in with reception to get your conference pass and your smart bracelet. They’ll give you a run through on how the bracelet works as you’ve seen from the scenario above. Once you’ve put your bracelet on, you’re free to walk wherever you want in the conference hall. At first you see a series of stands that don’t interest you too much but then you see it… that’s right… what you’ve been waiting for… a stand discussing… Azure IOT Hub. At first you can’t contain yourself, but you realise I can share my feedback. By pressing a button on your bracelet, a message is sent to the conference centre team.

The team take this information to quickly organise a conference session discussing all the benefits of Azure IOT. But how do users get informed of this new event? The conference team pass a message to the connected devices informing users who have provide positive feedback that a conference is about to start. The conference team can now see users in droves running towards the conference centre. Following the session, you can submit additional feedback which of course is positive.

As you walk round more you feel that it’s time for lunch, so you head towards the main dinner areas. The conference team have identified that queues are starting to form in these areas so send a notification to your device. You soon receive this and choose to go to a lesser own area. You enjoy your lunch and feel it’s time to head off.

You arrive at the exit area where a member of the conference team scans your device and provides you a list of your favourite vendors. In addition to this you also receive a report on where you felt happiest and what sessions you were in. Details of these sessions have been emailed to you automatically.

What you don’t realise is the conference team has taken the data from the entire event to understand where the best and worst moments were. This data can be used to ensure that future events are even better. In addition to this they can also track feet fall across the convention centre to analyse pain points and empty areas.

It’s clear that IOT brings with it many benefits to support events such as this conference. However, devices such as heart rate trackers or factory machines can be linked to the internet to help users better understand the status of these devices. By doing so reducing the requirement to have people constantly monitoring, instead having automatic processes in place.

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