Real World Applications of IoT
Today, IoT has captured a considerable market. According to Gartner, the following table
explains the adoption of IoT in the consumer and business landscape from 2016 to 2020.
Category 2016 2017 2018 2020
Business: vertical-specific 1,316 1,635 2,027 3,171
Business: cross-industry 1,102 1,501 2,132 4,381
Consumer 3,963 5,244 7,036 12,863
Total 6,381 8,380 11,196 20,415
Now let’s have a look at the use-cases of IoT across dierent industries.
Industrial & Manufacturing
IoT-powered machinery and equipment are being used to communicate information related
to the operations in the industry. This is valuable for the supervisors, managers, and the upper
leadership for remote supervision of their industrial plants from a separate location.
Often, the state of machinery and equipment degrades silently. Sometimes, these faults are
discovered too late, resulting in accidents or mishaps. To address these concerns, IoT-based
sensors are used in equipment to monitor their quality. These sensors use certain parameters
for vibration and temperature to ascertain the state of the equipment. As any value exceeds its
range, the sensor instantly notifies the relevant authorities with a warning.
Likewise, IoT has made its impact on the supply chain segment too. IoT facilitates both
manufactures and consumers to monitor and track their products in any part of the world. For
consumers, this means the ability to get up-to-date alerts of their delivery without worrying
about its misplacement. For the manufacturers, a holistic view of the goods can be attained
where actual practical estimates, updates, and timing information of the inventory is extremely
useful to identify weak points and plug the weakened holes.
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The IoT shift is supported by many international manufacturers. Siemens—a major
German manufacturing brand—has infused IoT in its AG Plant in its drive to completely auto-
mate its “smart factories”. The plant is known for generating automated solutions for leading
brands like BMW and has incorporated automation in its operations to almost 75 percent.
Similarly, a U.S. oil and gas company has been successful in increasing the eciency of its
production with IoT-powered sensors. These sensors measure properties like pressure, tem-
perature, and other critical characteristics in oil drilling and extraction processes to improve
the optimization of processes and come up with a competitive advantage against their rivals.
Consumer
For consumers, the common man, the terminology of IoT refers to an influx of devices which
can enhance productivity in their daily routines.
A common example is of IoT-powered fitness bands—which fall into the category of wearables.
A fitness band tracks daily health activities like monitoring the distance a user walks/runs, con-
sumption of calories, heartbeats (for patients with cardiovascular diseases), and other important
health metrics. Before the emergence of fitness bands, each of these activities required sepa-
rate devices, where the lack of internet-connectivity meant that it was harder to monitor’s one
health. However, fitness band eased such issues with their internet connectivity, where all of this
information can be managed and transmitted to other devices and can be even sent to medical
institutions.
Similarly, IoT can also reshape “digital assistants”. Voice-enabled and text-enabled AI assis-
tants, like Google Assistant, Alexa, and Siri, have been making waves since the last decade. How-
ever, the advent of IoT has helped them to combine information from various sources—from
apps, RFID tags, Bluetooth, location sensors—to provide much more personalized interaction.
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For instance, you may forget your wallet while leaving for the oce. But before you start your
car, the IoT-enabled camera in your home identifies the wallet and instantly sends a notification
to your mobile to take the wallet.
Retail
Another industry that has changed significantly over the past few years is the retail sector. In
order to boost their customer satisfaction, retention, and experience, retailers are increasingly
making use of IoT in the forefront of their business processes. According to Global Market
Insights Inc., by 2024, the availability of IoT solutions in the retail industry may cross the
$30 billion mark.
Likewise, Verizon’s study states that almost 90 percent of retailers shared valuable
consumer insights after the inclusion of IoT in their brick-and-mortar businesses. Similarly,
the report illustrated that fact that close to 80 percent of retailers opine that IoT can strengthen
cooperation with partnered companies to bolster their quality of goods as well as their services
for the consumers.
Additionally, almost 80 percent of retailers are positive that technology carries enough potential
to raise the standard of customer experiences.
Smart shelves are one of the most significant applications of IoT in the retail landscape.
Asmart shelf carries three basic components:
• Antenna,
• RFID tag, and
• RFID reader.
RFID tags are integrated into the products and goods in shelves which gather data and send it to
IoT-based systems. These shelves are “intelligent”, which means that they reduce the standard
inventory management dilemmas by observing and recording the quantity of products. Store
managers can receive alerts when a popular item is going to be sold out soon. They can also be
notified about expiry dates of goods at the right time to avoid mishaps.
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Marketing
IoT in marketing is associated with improving the understanding of consumer mindset and
their purchasing habits. IoT focuses to acquire data that was previously unobtainable. As more
devices and equipment are laced with IoT sensors, customer interactions can be analyzed better.
These insights include going deeper into the buying journeys of the customer and processing
their feedback at each stage of the journey.
An example of IoT in marketing is the marketing strategy of FitBit, a brand that provides IoT-
enabled wearables. These products facilitate users in posting their figures and statistics on social
media platforms. As customers share their experiences with their friends on social media, the
product receives free marketing.
Finance
IoT solutions are helping financial organizations to get real-time data of the assets of their
clients, resulting in improved risk management.
Phone
Smart Watch
Card Reader
Laptop
Atm
ATM
Tablet
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For example, take Progressive—a leading U.S. brand known for car insurance—uses IoT in
conjunction with machine learning. By getting data about driving habits, the company has
started to tailor its insurance policies. So far, the company managed to receive more than 1.5
observations from its IoT solutions.
Another example can be taken from Diebold—a U.S. financial and security organiza-
tion. The brand used IoT to enhance its transactional network to provide convenience to its
client-base. To achieve this, a smart ATM was created. Because of this ATM, whenever a client
is interested to take out some cash, he/she can simply arrange a session with their mobile app;
afterwards, the nearest ATM communicates with the client and oers verification in the form
of QR, iris scanner, and NFC to complete the transaction. The entire transaction requires less
than 10 seconds!
Westpac Australia, a retail bank, did something dierent by installing beacons. These bea-
cons initiate conversations with customers and oer personal greetings. Additionally, they use
the data from business analytics to provide product oers that have an immediate impact on
the minds of their customers due to their relevancy.
Healthcare
IoT does only improve business processes; it also saves lives. Hospitals and medical institutions
have received one of the biggest advantages of IoT.
MT. Sinai Medical Center (located in New York City, USA) decreased its inpatient care wait-
ing time by almost 50 percent. They succeeded by collaborating with GE Healthcare to adopt an
IoT solution known as AutoBed. The solution continuously monitors occupancy in more than
1,000 units via close to 20 factors. As a result, patient requirements are addressed timely.
Health Care
Another IoT medical use case is e-Alert, an IoT-powered invention from Philips. The solution
was invented to tackle a certain issue in hospitals. Sometimes, the medical devices and equip-
ment in healthcare institutions fail at the wrong time, resulting in irreparable consequences—
even a death! The Philips system gathers input from all the medical instruments and transmits
a warning alert at the appropriate time to the medical sta. It makes sure that the alert reaches
before any mishap can occur.
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