The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of embedded devices(sensors/controllers) of physical objects to report and sense or control with their co-working devices of similar or different stature and with the external networks.

Aesthetic Tech is currently working on few Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that it finds emerging in couple of years to come.

We believe that this decade is important for IoT devices, algorithms and structure and will influence the emerging startups, influencing their execution strategy, associated risks, algorithms and networks.

The IoT implementations need brand new innovative technologies and expertise that most of the emerging startups are trying to acquire and excel. One main hurdle in implementation is costs associated with hardware but they are being addressed while China is in the business of mass production of IoT sensors and controllers. But still, the industry overall is immature and needs more vendor participation.

Aesthetic Tech is willing to collaborate and cooperate with IoT Industry worldwide in the following domains.

1. IoT security

The IoT Security deals with the risks and challenges associated with:

  • IoT devices
  • IoT Platforms
  • IoT operating systems,
  • IoT Networks
  • IoT systems /connectors

Security technologies will be required to protect IoT devices and platforms from both information attacks and physical tampering, to encrypt their networks, and to address new challenges such as impersonating “things” or denial-of-sleep attacks that drain batteries.

IoT security will be complicated by the fact that many “things” use simple processors and operating systems that may not support sophisticated security approaches.

“Experienced IoT security specialists are scarce, and security solutions are currently fragmented and involve multiple vendors,” said Jones. “New threats will emerge through 2021 as hackers find new ways to attack IoT devices and protocols, so long-lived ‘things’ may need updatable hardware and software to adapt during their life span.”

2. IoT analytics

IoT business models will exploit the information collected by “things” in many ways – for example, to understand customer behaviour, to deliver services, to improve products, and to identify and intercept business moments.

However, IoT demands new analytic approaches. New analytic tools and algorithms are needed now, but as data volumes increase through 2021, the needs of the IoT may diverge further from traditional analytics.

3. IoT device management

Long-lived nontrivial “things” will require management and monitoring. This includes device monitoring, firmware and software updates, diagnostics, crash analysis and reporting, physical management, and security management.

The IoT also brings new problems of scale to the management task. Tools must be capable of managing and monitoring thousands and perhaps even millions of devices.

4. Low-power, short-range IoT networks

Selecting a wireless network for an IoT device involves balancing many conflicting requirements, such as range, battery life, bandwidth, density, endpoint cost and operational cost.

Low-power, short-range networks will dominate wireless IoT connectivity through 2025, far outnumbering connections using wide-area IoT networks.

However, commercial and technical trade-offs mean that many solutions will coexist, with no single dominant winner and clusters emerging around certain technologies, applications and vendor ecosystems.

5. Low-power, wide-area networks

Traditional cellular networks don’t deliver a good combination of technical features and operational cost for those IoT applications that need wide-area coverage combined with relatively low bandwidth, good battery life, low hardware and operating cost, and high connection density.

The long-term goal of a wide-area IoT network is to deliver data rates from hundreds of bits per second (bps) to tens of kilobits per second (kbps) with nationwide coverage, a battery life of up to ten years, an endpoint hardware cost of around $5, and support for hundreds of thousands of devices connected to a base station or its equivalent.

The first low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) were based on proprietary technologies, but in the long term emerging standards such as Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) will likely dominate this space.

6. IoT processors

The processors and architectures used by IoT devices define many of their capabilities, such as whether they are capable of strong security and encryption, power consumption, whether they are sophisticated enough to support an operating system, updatable firmware, and embedded device management agents.

As with all hardware design, there are complex trade-offs between features, hardware cost, software cost, software upgradability and so on. As a result, understanding the implications of processor choices will demand deep technical skills.

7. IoT operating systems

Traditional operating systems (OSs) such as Windows and iOS were not designed for IoT applications. They consume too much power, need fast processors, and in some cases, lack features such as guaranteed real-time response.

They also have too large a memory footprint for small devices and may not support the chips that IoT developers use. Consequently, a wide range of IoT-specific operating systems has been developed to suit many different hardware footprints and feature needs.

8. Event stream processing

Some IoT applications will generate extremely high data rates that must be analysed in real time. Systems creating tens of thousands of events per second are common, and millions of events per second can occur in some telecom and telemetry situations.

To address such requirements, distributed stream computing platforms have emerged. They typically use parallel architectures to process very high-rate data streams to perform tasks such as real-time analytics and pattern identification.

9. IoT platforms

IoT platforms bundle many of the infrastructure components of an IoT system into a single product. The services provided by such platforms fall into three main categories: low-level device control and operations such as communications, device monitoring and management, security, and firmware updates; IoT data acquisition, transformation and management; and IoT application development, including event-driven logic, application programming, visualisation, analytics and adapters to connect to enterprise systems.

10. IoT standards and ecosystems

Although ecosystems and standards aren’t precisely technologies, most eventually materialise as application programming interfaces (APIs).

Standards and their associated APIs will be essential because IoT devices will need to interoperate and communicate, and many IoT business models will rely on sharing data between multiple devices and organisations.

Many IoT ecosystems will emerge, and commercial and technical battles between these ecosystems will dominate areas such as the smart home, the smart city and healthcare.

Organisations creating products may have to develop variants to support multiple standards or ecosystems and be prepared to update products during their life span as the standards evolve and new standards and related APIs emerge.