Few people have heard of microcontrollers, but a great many people own them. They are found in household appliances such as fridges and TVs. They are small computers that, for example, manage the dials and display on a washing machine, open and close the taps, start and stop the drum, and perform other functions for the user's selected wash program. More complex devices have several microcontrollers. A car, for example, might contain 30 of them.
Manufactured by the million, and costing a few dollars each, they have been a standard feature of product design for years. What is new is that they are becoming connected to the Internet. The result is the Internet of Things. What does this mean for consumers? Some eye-catching possibilities have been widely advertised, such as the ability to turn up the heating in your home on your way back from vacation. But less spectacular benefits, such as higher reliability and lower maintenance costs, could be more important.
Better Product Management
As well as managing the wash program, the microcontroller in your washing machine can monitor its performance and detect potential fault conditions at an early stage. Reports can be sent to the manufacturer, allowing maintenance to be scheduled when needed.
It is already common practice to do this for aircraft. (Ill-fated flight MH-370 did in fact send two reports to engine manufacturer Rolls Royce, unfortunately at the start of the flight so that they were no help in tracking its final movements.) Cars and other motor vehicles will come next. As communications become ever cheaper, the technique will spread to humbler appliances. The result will be that they last longer and cost less to run.
The Open Group QLM Work Group is developing standards to support exchange of product information to take traditional product lifecycle management to a new level in the Internet of Things. Its first standards, for basic data format and message exchange, are expected later this year.
What Smart Devices Can Do
Product management is one application of the Internet of Things, based on existing use of smart devices. There are many other applications based on potential new uses. The Open Group recently published a White Paper (The Nexus of Forces in Action -- see http://ift.tt/1rkCqwJ) describing use-cases for a number of new technologies, as part of its Open Platform 3.0 (tm) initiative to define a technology platform that will help businesses gain benefit from them. Use cases involving the Internet of Things include:
- A retail smart store that gives product advice to shoppers based on their browsing behavior detected by sensors
- A city that plans energy distribution based on sensing of environmental conditions and transport use
- Wearable devices that give personal feedback on exercise and lifestyle
- Medical devices that provide remote monitoring of people that cannot fully look after themselves
- Intelligent electric vehicle charging network
- Secure home-to-school transport for children wearing clothes with embedded devices.
Chasing the Waves
But the coolest application that I've heard of has the embedded devices in outer space. NASA reports that surfers are using information about sea conditions gathered by satellites and broadcast over the Internet to find the biggest waves.
This kind of story makes a big splash, but is that all we will get? Some people think so. Trend watcher Jason Bloomberg, for example, recently put forward Seven Reasons Why the Internet of Things is Doomed.
There are indeed issues to be resolved, particularly (as Jason points out) with security. These can and will be addressed. The potential of networked devices to change our world is so great that a way will be found.
The biggest changes will probably be unspectacular, like those in product management, but they will have a big impact on our lives. The Internet of Things will give us more knowledge of and control over our environment -- whether we are washing the clothes or chasing the waves.
Photo credit: Scott Bedford/Shutterstock
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