Top 10 Applications of IoT: Smart Home, Wearable, Smart City, Smart Grid, Industrial Internet, Connected Vehicle, Connected Healthcare (Digital Healthcare/Telemedicine/Telemedicine), Smart Retail, Smart Supply Chain, Smart Agriculture.
Smart Home
Whenever we think of IoT systems, the most important and efficient application is the smart home, which is the highest IoT application across all channels. The number of people looking for smart homes is increasing by about 60,000 per month. Another interesting thing is that the IoT Analytics Smart Home database includes 256 companies and startups. More and more companies are now actively involved in smart homes and similar applications in this field. The estimated funding for smart home startups is more than $2.5 billion and growing at a fast pace. The list of startups includes well-known startup names such as AlertMe or Nest, as well as some multinational companies such as Philips, Haier or Belkin.
Wearable
Like the smart home, wearables remain a hot topic for the potential Internet of Things. Every year, consumers around the world wait for the release of the latest Apple smartwatch. Apart from that, there are many other wearables that can make our lives easier, such as the Sony SmartB Trainer, the LookSee bracelet or the Myo gesture control.
Smart Cities
Smart Cities, as the name suggests, is a major innovation that covers a wide variety of use cases from water distribution and traffic management to waste management and environmental monitoring. It has become so popular because it attempts to eliminate the discomforts and problems of city dwellers. The IoT solutions offered by the Smart Cities sector address a variety of city-related issues, including transportation, reducing air and noise pollution, and helping to make cities safer.
Smart Grid
Smart grid is another prominent area of IoT technology. The smart grid essentially promises to automate the extraction of information about the behavior of consumers and power suppliers to improve the efficiency, economy and reliability of power distribution. The popularity of the concept is evidenced by 41,000 Google searches per month.
Industrial Internet
One way to think about the industrial Internet is to look at connected machines and equipment in industries such as power generation, oil, gas and healthcare. It also takes advantage of unplanned downtime and system failures that can lead to life-threatening situations. Systems embedded in the IoT often include devices such as fitness bands for heart monitoring or smart home appliances. These systems are functional and easy to use, but unreliable because they don't usually cause an emergency if downtime occurs.
Connected Car
Connected car technology is a vast and extensive network of multiple sensors, antennas, embedded software and technology that helps communicate and navigate in a complex world. It has a responsibility to make decisions with consistency, accuracy and speed. It must also be reliable. These requirements will become even more critical as humans hand over control of the steering wheel and brakes to self-driving vehicles currently being tested on the highway.
Connected healthcare (digital healthcare/telemedicine/telehealth)
The Internet of Things has a variety of applications in healthcare, ranging from remote monitoring of devices to advanced technologies, from smart sensors to device integration. It has the potential to improve the way doctors deliver healthcare and ensure the safety and health of patients. IoT in healthcare allows patients to spend more time interacting with their doctors, leading to increased patient engagement and satisfaction. From personal fitness sensors to surgical robots, IoT in healthcare brings new tools that are updated with the latest technologies in the ecosystem and help develop better healthcare. IoT contributes to healthcare reform and provides pocket-friendly solutions for patients and healthcare professionals.
Smart Retail
Retailers have started adopting IoT solutions and are using IoT embedded systems in multiple applications to improve store operations, increase purchases, reduce theft, enable inventory management and enhance the consumer shopping experience. With IoT, brick-and-mortar retailers can compete more forcefully with online challengers. They can regain lost market share and attract consumers to their stores, making it easier for them to buy more while saving money.
Smart supply chains
Supply chains have been getting smarter for several years. Providing solutions to problems, such as tracking goods while they're on the road or in transit, or helping suppliers exchange inventory information, are some of the popular offerings. With IoT-enabled systems, factory equipment containing embedded sensors can transmit data about different parameters, such as pressure, temperature and machine utilization. IoT systems can also handle workflow and change equipment settings to optimize performance.
Smart agriculture
Smart agriculture is often overlooked in IoT applications. However, due to the number of often remote farming operations and the large number of livestock farmers engage in, all of this can be monitored and controlled through the IoT and could revolutionize the way farmers run their day-to-day operations. However, this idea has not yet received large-scale attention. Nonetheless, it remains one of the IoT applications that should not be underestimated. Smart agriculture has the potential to become an important application area, especially in agricultural exporting countries.