If you’ve ever gone exploring in the corners of the world wide web that are dedicated to technology and it’s ever evolving presence in our day to day lives, which you probably have if you’ve ever used an Iphone or heard of this thing called Google, you might have run into a term called IoT, which stands for the Internet of Things.
Kind of an odd term, right? Sounds like one of those “cool” tech terms that we picture only the smartest of the smarties using, like Java, or GUI (pronounced “Gooey” as I recently learned). We all have a pretty good idea of what the internet is at this point. But what the heck is an Internet of Things??? Well, turns out that it’s not some high tech term for a mass data bank or a new confangled manner of surfing
the web like Web3 (more on that one another time). In fact, almost all of us have our own IoT and don’t even realize it. The Wikipedia definition for IoT is:
“ describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks.”
The fact that the definition has almost nothing to do with the internet itself is rather hilarious, if you ask me, but leads to a lot of the mystery behind the rather simple concept. All your smart thermostats, automatic smart locks, smart speakers (looking at you Alexa), video doorbells, and other nifty devices that make day-to-day a little simpler, when connected over a wifi network, create a interconnected web of informatio
n based on sensory input from the world around them. And together they form the infamous IoT!
So, next time you ask Alexa what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, give yourself a little pat on the back for having built your very own IoT, and for being so smart that you did it by accident!
Take that, not-coffee Java!