Future Scope of IoT (Internet of Things)

Check out this video on the Internet of Things to have a clear understanding of the concepts:

What is Internet of Things (IoT)?

Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of connected devices such as sensors, electronic equipment, cameras, and many more. They are programmed in such a way that IoT provides automation for the devices that are connected. Some of the common IoT devices that we come across and use in our day-to-day lives are smart TVs, refrigerators, and air conditioners. We just need to give commands to these devices using our smartphone application for operating them. Also, we use many wearable IoT devices such as smartwatches and wrist bands that show our heartbeat, blood pressure, and the distance we walked. This is all possible by smartly integrating technologies and equipment together to form an IoT product. Further, due to the advancements in the field of AI and Machine Learning, the future scope of IoT has impressively increased. The potential of IoT is not limited to healthcare. There are various other applications of IoT. In this blog, we will discuss the Future scope of IoT in Agriculture, healthcare, automotive and industry. Now, let us discuss the need for IoT.

Why do we need Internet of Things (IoT)?

Have you ever been in a situation where you went to the market and forgot to switch off your AC, fan, or light and felt helpless that you cannot return home to switch it off? This is where IoT comes into the picture. It can remind you of the essential tasks that you often forget to do. Also, using the mobile application, you can access your home appliances integrated with IoT from anywhere around the world.

Another very exciting IoT device is the NFC (near field communication) smart ring.

These rings serve as a multi-purpose device. They are rings consisting of the connectivity of the network, NFC chips, and sensors that help you exchange data. By using NFC rings, you can pay your bills, access your car’s door lock by just swiping it, and also get your mobile notifications. Isn’t it a great invention where everything can be done by just swiping the ring?

All this is possible due to the connection of the IoT devices over the Internet servers that helps in sharing and exchanging the data. This technology reduces human efforts and saves a lot of time.

Now, in this blog on the future scope of IoT, we will just have a look at how IoT devices work.

How does IoT work?

Internet of Things is a combination of smart electronic devices, local area networks, the Internet, cloud servers, and the user application. An IoT device connects through a local network. Then, it transmits information through the Internet to the cloud servers. Further, the cloud servers provide the data or information of the end-user application to the IoT device. This transfer of information is a two-way communication that helps operate the IoT system.

An IoT system consists of four major components as shown in the below image:

• IoT Devices: They are smart electronic gadgets that consist of wireless sensors that help in transferring data over the Internet.
• Local Network: It helps in accessing the data from the devices connected to the Internet.
• The Internet: It helps the devices connect with the user applications and servers.
• Back-end Services: They consist of a remote server, user access and control, and mobile applications. These services constantly help in exchanging streamed data from various IoT devices and end-user applications.

These four components combine together to successfully operate an IoT system. Further, let us look at the applications and the future scope of IoT.

Future Scope of IoT

Internet of Things has emerged as a leading technology around the world. It has gained a lot of popularity in lesser time. Also, the advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have made the automation of IoT devices easy. Basically, AI and ML programs are combined with IoT devices to give them proper automation. Due to this, IoT has also expanded its area of application in various sectors. Here, in this section, we will discuss the applications and the future scope of IoT in healthcare, automotive, and agriculture industries.

Healthcare

In this section, we will see the future of IoT in healthcare sector. IoT has proved to be one of the best tools for the healthcare industry. It helps provide advanced healthcare facilities to patients, doctors, and researchers. These facilities include smart diagnosis, wearable devices for tracking health, patient management, and many more. Furthermore, IoT devices have reduced unnecessary strain on the healthcare system.

The healthcare devices can directly send the patients’ data health to doctors over a safe network. This allows the doctors to diagnose the patients from remote locations.

Reasons for IoT being beneficial in the healthcare industry are as follows:

1. Error reduction in treatments

With the help of IoT devices, there is a decrease in manual errors in diagnosing patients. Thus, patients can get proper treatment on time. Also, the 24/7 diagnosis through gadgets gives a more clear idea about patients’ health when compared to manual diagnosis.

2. Decrease in the cost of treatments

Manual diagnosis requires time and the use of various types of costly equipment, along with other hospital charges. Due to this, the overall cost of the treatment increases. We can reduce these costs by using IoT gadgets. Also, the hospital charges and congestion in hospitals can be reduced as patients can be diagnosed from their respective locations.

3. Availability of specialists in remote locations

Internet of Things solves one of the major problems of the healthcare industry that is the availability of doctors, especially specialists, in remote locations. With the help of IoT devices, the treatment of patients in the physical absence of doctors has become possible. The patients just need to wear the device. Then, the device will send all the real-time data of patients’ health to the respective doctors for analyzing the condition. In this way, the scope of Internet of Things is helping the healthcare sector give proper treatment to the needy.

Agriculture

One of the three basic human needs is food. To fulfill the need for food, we do farming. However, now, as the population of the world is increasing, the agricultural industry is facing many challenges. Also, changes in weather conditions and climate hugely impact the agricultural industry. To meet the rising demand for food, the industry has hence adopted technology to increase productivity. It includes the use of precision farming, agricultural drones, and smart farming applications.

All these are built on top of the application of Internet of Things. Now, let us discuss how precision farming, smart farming applications, and agricultural drones help in increasing the productivity of the land.

Precision farming

In agriculture, Information and Communication Technology is a tool used for smart farming. With the help of IoT-based devices, crop fields are observed. The technology uses sensors to calculate the moisture of soil, humidity, and temperature. Also, it uses an automated irrigation system to make efficient use of water. Precision farming helps farmers monitor their fields and boost productivity.

Agricultural drones

Drones used for agriculture and farming are one of the best applications of Internet of Things. They are used to enhance agricultural processes. We use agricultural drones for planting crops, irrigating fields, spraying of pesticides, and monitoring the fields. With the help of drones, it becomes easier to evaluate the health of crops. This is all possible with the help of smart IoT-based devices that are used to make agricultural drones.

Smart greenhouses

Farmers use greenhouse farming to enhance the productivity of crops. In greenhouse farming, the environmental factors that affect the growth of crops are controlled by manual intervention. However, manually controlling the mechanism for the growth of crops is less productive. The emergence of IoT and technological advancements has led to the creation of IoT-based greenhouses that consist of various devices such as sensors, climate controllers, etc.

These IoT devices help in measuring the various environmental conditions according to the requirements of plants. As all sensors and devices connect over the Internet servers, they provide accurate information on the environmental conditions. Then, the devices activate actuators to control heaters, fans, windows, and lighting of greenhouses to set according to the environment.

This is how the scope of IoT is enhancing the productivity of the agricultural industry.

Automotive Industry

In the 21st century, the application of IoT is revolutionizing the automotive industry. One of the major applications is the creation of self-driving cars that has changed the trends of the automotive industry. Engineers have created self-driving cars to reduce manual errors and ensure a safe drive. Various companies around the world are creating self-driving vehicles including Google, Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Audi, and many more. These self-driving cars use various technologies such as Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, and IoT. IoT devices are programmed in such a way that they assist in creating an automated system for self-driving cars.

These IoT devices consist of HD cameras, thermal sensors, smart navigators, speed controller, rain sensors, wireless connectivity, and proximity sensors. While using these cars, you need to enter your location and the destination. Then, the navigator helps locate the destination and tries to find the shortest path. After that, the IoT-based HD cameras help in getting the visuals of the surrounding and send the data to the AI-based systems. These systems analyze and visualize the data of the surrounding and accordingly fix the response of the self-driving cars. Also, there are IoT-based speed controllers that help regulate the speed of these cars according to the traffic and congestion. This is how the scope of IoT is changing the trends in the automotive industry.

Jobs in IoT

As India is a developing country, it has a wide IoT scope. According to Naukri.com, the future scope of IoT in India is very high as there are 117,114 job openings for an IoT Developer here. On the other hand, in the United States, the demand for an IoT Developer has jumped over 300 percent.

As we know that today every electronic device comes with an installed IoT system, there is a bright future scope of IoT. Let us look at the below graph to know the stats of jobs that has been available for an IoT Developer over the years.

Salary of IoT Developers

Coming to the salary figures, the average salary provided to an IoT Developer in the United States is US$164,417 per year. In India, the average annual salary is ₹850k. This is an attractive package to start your career with.

This is all about the future scope of IoT and how it is changing the world with its applications.

Stay tuned with us to learn more!