The IoT or the machine revolution?

About 22 years ago, exactly on March 31, 2021, the Wachowski sisters' science fiction film The Matrix, starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Keanu Reeves, and Laurence Fisburne, premiered in the United States of America. This film marked a before and after not only in some cinematographic editing techniques but also in the way a probable war between the machines and the human being was approached in a dystopian future.

Human beings were exploited on farms, as raw material for the generation of energy for machines, while you made them believe that they lived a non-existent reality created and managed by computer programs, algorithms, and of course a network of interconnected computers known as The Matrix.

Why the remembrance of this science fiction classic? Well, because in this article we will be talking about the technology that makes it possible to create a communication network between different electronic devices and between them with the human being, its name: the internet of things (IoT). Would you like to know what the IoT is? How does it work? What are its benefits? Well, stay with me and let's talk about this very interesting topic.

I think it's a good idea to go looking for Neo!

What is the Internet of Things (IoT)?

The Internet of Things is a digital interconnection network between devices, people, and the Internet itself that facilitates the interaction of these three elements, in such a way that data can be exchanged between them, creating a synergy that seeks to improve the efficiency of the performance of The devices, on the one hand, improve the best user experience on the other and generate a real-time database that allows the development of the AI ​​of the different electronic elements connected to the network.

The term IoT was initially coined in 1999 (coincidentally the same year as The Matrix was launched) by British researcher Kevin Ashton, co-founder of the Auto-ID Center, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where research on identification was conducted. network radio frequency and sensor technologies. Initially, this concept was associated with the connection between computers, smartphones, and tablets.

How does the IoT work?

The devices associated with a common network, developed under IoT technology, are connected with a process called M2M (machine to machine) in which two electronic devices or machines communicate with each other using any type of connectivity available (it can be cable, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.), allowing you to get your work done without the need for a human to intervene directly. So that the "machines" can interpret their physical environment, specific sensors and chips installed in the devices are used, which, through the use of AI, allow them to analyze what is happening around them and how to react to certain situations.

On the other hand, these connected devices generate a large amount of data that reaches an IoT platform that collects, processes, and analyzes it. Likewise, the patterns of human use, analyzed together with the data received from the devices, allow us to anticipate and automatically schedule certain activities for the correct maintenance of the status of the devices or for the timely attention of the user's needs.

As an example of this we have lamps and smart mobile phones that, when connected with a smartwatch, on the user's wrist, could be turned on / off, depending on the user's sleep pattern, they could even order the TV, the coffee maker or from the water heater, depending on the alarm time set on the said clock. In the case of the connection and interaction of the elements of a home, it is also known as home automation and virtual assistants such as Google's Alexa or Apple's Siri are of fundamental importance between processes.

What are the goals of the IoT

In theoretical terms, the IoT seeks that most devices are permanently connected to the Internet to improve their efficiency, anticipate user needs and provide daily information, in real-time, that allows the development of AI and its use within the daily processes of the human being, automating them and making them more and more efficient.

The idea is that in the not too distant future everything is connected to the network and interacts automatically, including people, processes, and data. The management of large amounts of information to provide useful knowledge for day-to-day or for other purposes that ultimately also seek the common good is an increasingly less utopian goal from this approach, in which machines, through AI, take a more proactive role in the performance of their duties.

Such as lamps that turn off when they are no longer needed, to save energy, a robot vacuum cleaner that is activated to clean the home when the user is not there, or even a refrigerator that sends notifications for the purchase of supplies when it detects little existence of the same In short, the applications that can be given to such a valuable technological tool are endless.

What did you think of the IoT? Would you like to have this technology in your life? How do you imagine the human-machine interaction will be in the next 20 years? I would like to see your answers to these and other questions in the comment box, you can also let me know if you want me to develop other aspects related to this interesting topic.

We keep reading!