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IoT Technology and its use in Smart Home Industry
Imbibing changes in the environment as well as user preferences, the ever-learning algorithm offers a customized user experience in a sustainable way.
A “Smart Home” is that which features a range of remotely controllable smart devices linked through a smart hub or network. Whereas, the Internet of things (IoT) is a looming paradigm that allows communication between smart devices and sensors via the internet to simplify our lives. The key technology of IoT comprises radio frequency identification(RFID), sensor technology and intelligence technology. Due to using unique algorithms, the interactive and processing capacities of IoT allows the integration of a wide range of elements to operate as a unified unit. When smart devices are connected with the internet, IoT provides unique solutions to challenges faced by various businesses, private and governmental industries worldwide. In a nutshell, IoT is an innovation that binds together a whole bunch of smart systems, frameworks, intelligent devices and sensors.
- by Srinivas Shanbhogue, Vice President, Home and Distribution, Schneider Electric India.
Srinivas Shanbhogue
“IoT and smart homes have a symbiotic relationship, wherein one is a means to the existence of the other. IoT makes it possible for us to design smart homes, using its various capabilities. For example, voice assistants and connected gadgets run on the IoT and can significantly improve our stay-at-home experience. These gadgets can remind us about daily chores, operate our appliances, clean our homes, entertain us and enhance the energy efficiency, all at the same time”, says Sumit Padmakar Joshi, CEO & MD, Signify(formerly known as Philips
Lighting), South Asia. Most interestingly, IoT applications enable connected devices to communicate with each other without human participation. IoT has converted the traditional way of living into a convenient high-tech lifestyle. “The Internet of Things is constantly redefining the way we work, how we relate to each other, grow food, manage and care for our elderly, and repair the planet. With ever-increasing IoT devices being rolled out, we are heading for exponential growth, changing the world simultaneously. Today we are experiencing the unlimited power of billions of people connected by smart devices with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity and access to knowledge. A decade back, it wasn’t evident that humans can ever be connected the way we are today. And, now we are moving towards a complicated landscape where humans will not only connect among themselves but also to the things around us”, says Arpit Chhabra, CEO, IoTfy, says.
Global Market Scenario
“The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is considered the heartbeat of the Fourth
“It is often said that IoT aims to do that for information about what electricity did for energy. It lays the foundation for a huge volume of data. We use this generated data to feed AI that offers value propositions including actionable insights, learning and modelling, automating schedules, preventive and predictive use-cases”
- by Arpit Chhabra, CEO, IoTfy.
Arpit Chhabra
industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). This technological upgradation has helped companies in business continuity amidst pandemic and is set to lead the post pandemic transformation too. As per a joint report by FICCI and Ernst & Young, the APAC region is forecasted to become the largest global IoT region in terms of both connections and revenue by 2025 with India expected to have 5 billion connected devices by 2022”, states Srinivas Shanbhogue, Vice President,
Home and Distribution, Schneider Electric
India. Software solutions and platforms are predicted to drive the market as a behemoth amount of data is moved to the cloud and the markets are expected to be flooded with new IoT applications. Today, the concept of smart homes is not restricted to the uppermiddle class or upper class, it is gaining rapid popularity and acceptance in middle-class society as well. Smart solutions and smart devices are widely available these days in a diverse price range, making them affordable for the mass. Besides, the rising adoption rate of the cloud platform, increasing use of advanced data analytics and data processing practices, growing demand from numerous industries and amelioration in wireless network technologies are the major factors pushing forward the market growth. Among SMEs, IoT traction is substantially increasing growth opportunities for the system integrators while strengthening the smart home industry at a global level. The market is segmented into smart energy and utilities, home and building automation, smart manufacturing, smart retail and many more. Apart from residential, various industries are adopting IoT solutions to provide affordable and quality services to the end-users.
Image credit - Schneider Electric
- by Sameer Saxena, Member of Board of Director, Strategy Marketing, Legrand(India).
Sameer Saxena
IoT and AI working handin-hand to build connected homes
Artificial Intelligence(AI) is a far-reaching branch of computer science that is used in designing smart devices. With the help of AI, smart devices can learn from the observation of regular human behaviours and requirements, take new inputs and perform tasks to reduce human labour. IoT is used to collect and handle a plethora of data that is needed by Artificial Intelligence algorithms. Then the data collected by IoT gets converted into useful prosecutable data that can be executed by IoT devices. “The core of the Internet of Things is collecting data and tapping and analyzing that data to enable connected devices or people to make smart decisions. Without making sense of data and leveraging it to get a smart decision, getting such a large amount of data from associated entities does not make any sense. But how can IoT systems make intelligent choices? That’s where AI and machine learning come to the rescue of the Internet of Things. Machine learning is a branch of computer science that detects and infers patterns from past data to make valuable predictions. AI is the sub-branch of machine learning which equips a machine to mimic a human brain and can make decisions based on its past experiences as well as respond to the action in real-time. Moreover, AI trains a machine to understand and adapt itself according to the environment that it is surrounded by so that it can make sound choices in real-time scenarios”, says Sameer Saxena, Member
of Board of Director, Strategy Marketing, Legrand(India).
Image credit - Legrand
“Reports say, lighting consumes up to 18% of India’s overall electricity consumption. To meet the needs of a growing population, we need to consume resources more efficiently. By replacing conventional lighting with LEDs energy consumption can be reduced by a remarkable 53%. Whereas, IoT enabled smart lighting technologies can further improve savings up to 80%”
- by Sumit Padmakar Joshi, CEO & MD, Signify(formerly known as Philips Lighting), South Asia.
Sumit Joshi
A truly intelligent smart home is a system that hardly needs any management on the user’s part and can make decisions based on observations or real-time data. Smart home security systems can now embody face recognition technology into video cameras. The network identifies facial landmarks like eyes, nose, chin and cheekbones in a person’s photo and matches the data with the imagery captured by cameras. Therefore, an AI-based security system can correctly identify the faces of a home’s residents and send notifications to their smartphones if it observes any suspicious activities on the premises. Natural language processing is another feature offered by AI-enabled devices like voice recognition technology and NLP tools comprising Amazon Transcribe and Azure Custom Speech Service or Siri, Alexa and other voice assistants. Hence, IoT is often considered as the body and AI as the brain of a device.
Benefits of IoT devices
“IoT is a technology that has the ability to transform life as we know it, but AI is the real driving force behind the IoT’s full potential. The core of IoT depends on how the data managed by AI is being processed to make intelligent decisions and aiding the convenience of users. In the smart home hemisphere, the pattern of usage of home appliances, spaces and power is mapped by AI through connected devices which is then shared with the IoT system to automate the functioning of the house. For users, this
Image credit - Legrand
may just be a single click on their phone or a single switch, however, the intelligent devices which are created using Machine Learning (ML) are the game changers”, says Srinivas. IoT enables users to efficiently control and monitor all the devices and their performances. Smart refrigerators notify the user about when the yoghurt will expire or when eggs are about to finish. By shutting down when not in use, smart devices contribute to energy saving eventually cutting down the electricity bill. Also, IoT drives sustainability in numerous sectors reducing energy waste, improving connectivity and collecting energy data that can be analyzed to enhance efficiency. Supporting that, Arpit says, “It has helped energy companies broaden their services by linking up with numerous decentralized devices and/or energy sources like solar panels and microgrids to reduce strain on conventional power sources. Talking about the Smart Home industry, IoT has been equipping consumers with greater control of home energy use via smartphones or voice assistants. It has helped consumers make their homes more energy-efficient and affordable through circuit-level electricity monitoring, real-time reporting, smart alerts and remote energy controls. When plugged directly into breaker panels, we can provide real-time data about energy usage and production”. Smart home security systems are extremely helpful as they offer complete control of everything inside as well as outside the property with the help of cameras, motion and smoke detectors that notifies if they sense something unusual happening in and around the premises. “Among smart home technology, IoT-based locks were one of the first connected devices adopted at a wide scale. These locks put great attention to its products’ compatibility and user experience. These smart locks have everything— outstanding security features, a sleek app for users, plenty of features, easy access (remote via Wi-Fi and local via Bluetooth) and integration with the most popular virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri and Google Home”, adds Sameer.
Major Drawbacks
“The IoT phenomenon is getting bigger and better each year, but the lack of crossindustry standards is a hindrance. Unless IoT evolves to become a unified ecosystem, it will be tough for it to attain its peak potential. Industry leaders who have recognized this fact are stepping up to establish the required standards. Security is another challenge for the IoT. Every new hardware node or software module added to the system can offer a target for bad actors. Industry-wide standards can promise to play an important role in ensuring security across the ecosystem”, states Sumit. IoT is undoubtedly creating huge opportunities for numerous industries, but there are quite a few drawbacks as
well. One of the major concerns is cyber security. Others comprise the risk of overdependence on technology, data breach and malware attacks. “Today, organizations are taking security measures to protect information, however, this needs additional security and compliance to safeguard systems from attacks. With the number of connected devices increasing, addressing the security and safety of the data and the devices is going to be important and it is advisable to check all terms and conditions before giving the consent”, says Srinivas. “One of the nastiest malware types ever exists is Ransomware. This malware not only pulverizes your sensitive documents and data but also blocks admittance to them via encryption. At that time, the hackers easily hijack your IoT device and will request a payment expense for unscrambling the key opening the records. This is another biggest security challenge of IoT devices”, adds Sameer.
The way forward
Smart home systems have globally witnessed a considerably steep growth graph in the last couple of years. Today, many households and commercial spaces are adopting IoT and AI-enabled smart systems to save money, enhance comfort and go green. Further development of IoT and integration of AI technologies into the connected systems are expected to create an intelligent habitat that can predict the user’s needs and offer them a seamless experience. “With the advent of 5G and IOT, the smart home industry is expected to witness a massive growth in the coming years. As we make further strides in technology, a large plethora of options in terms of applications, appliances, devices and controllers will be made available to consumers to help design the smart home of the future. People will prefer to move to new homes and buildings fitted with connected lighting and integrated gadgets”, says Sumit. “5-8 years down the line, we can foresee advancement in internet technologies through improved network agility, unified artificial intelligence and the capability to deploy, enable, automate, and ensure security to multifaceted use cases. The possibility is not just in simultaneously commissioning billions of connected devices but in utilizing the massive silos of data generated that will automate diverse functions. With consumer IoT, we should expect the inflexion point in the next 2-3 years. Post that, IoT will be a natural part of the consumer’s lifestyle very similar to how SmartPhones became a norm in the last decade”, concludes Arpit.
Image credit - Iotfy
Image credit - Iotfy
