Internet of things

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The Internet of things (IoT) is the network of devices, vehicles, and home appliances that contain electronics, software, actuators, and connectivity which allows these things to connect, interact and exchange data.^[1][2][3][4]

IoT involves extending Internet connectivity beyond standard devices, such as desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets, to any range of traditionally dumb or non-internet-enabled physical devices and everyday objects. Embedded with technology, these devices can communicate and interact over the Internet, and they can be remotely monitored and controlled.

History[edit]

The definition of the Internet of things has evolved due to convergence of multiple technologies, real-time analytics, machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems.^[5] Traditional fields of embedded systems, wireless sensor networks, control systems, automation (including home and building automation), and others all contribute to enabling the Internet of things.^[6]

The concept of a network of smart devices was discussed as early as 1982, with a modified Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University becoming the first Internet-connected appliance,^[7] able to report its inventory and whether newly loaded drinks were cold.^[8] Mark Weiser's 1991 paper on ubiquitous computing, "The Computer of the 21st Century", as well as academic venues such as UbiComp and PerCom produced the contemporary vision of IoT.^[9][10] In 1994, Reza Raji described the concept in IEEE Spectrum as "[moving] small packets of data to a large set of nodes, so as to integrate and automate everything from home appliances to entire factories".^[11] Between 1993 and 1997, several companies proposed solutions like Microsoft's at Work or Novell's NEST. The field gained momentum when Bill Joy envisioned Device to Device (D2D) communication as a part of his "Six Webs" framework, presented at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 1999.^[12]

The term "Internet of things" was likely coined by Kevin Ashton of Procter & Gamble, later MIT's Auto-ID Center, in 1999,^[13] though he prefers the phrase "Internet for things".^[14] At that point, he viewed Radio-frequency identification (RFID) as essential to the Internet of things,^[15] which would allow computers to manage all individual things.^[16][17][18]

A research article mentioning the Internet of things was submitted to the conference for Nordic Researchers in Logistics, Norway, in June 2002,^[19] which was preceded by an article published in Finnish in January 2002.^[20] The implementation described there was developed by Kary Främling and his team at Helsinki University of Technology and more closely matches the modern one, i.e. an information system infrastructure for implementing smart, connected objects.^[21]

Defining the Internet of things as "simply the point in time when more 'things or objects' were connected to the Internet than people", Cisco Systems estimated that IoT was "born" between 2008 and 2009, with the things/people ratio growing from 0.08 in 2003 to 1.84 in 2010.^[22]