The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term used to describe the networking of Internet-enabled, intelligent devices. These devices communicate with each other to automate processes and measure, collect, and analyze data. Although useful for increasing productivity, the interfaces within the machine communication harbor risks for data protection and IT security.
A strict definition is not possible, as the term covers a wide range of uses. In most cases, however, IoT describes a network for machine communication.
The term should be distinguished from the conventional Internet (social Internet), in which people primarily communicate with other people or machines (e.g. servers or bots). The Internet of Things in its current form has only become possible thanks to technological progress over the last two decades and is still developing rapidly.
IoT devices, which are accessible to everyone, are primarily intended to make everyday life easier. To this end, Internet-enabled devices or applications are linked together and made controllable. These can be all the components of a smart home, for example.
IoT enables users to receive a notification when certain events occur, e.g., if the room temperature falls below a certain value or if the electric toothbrush is used with too much pressure.
Intelligent sensors in IoT devices can also ensure that a roller shutter automatically darkens the window, for example, without the need for human intervention.
The terms smart city and smart environment are also used in connection with IoT. They encompass the creation and use of an IoT to optimize one’s own environment, whether this is a home or an entire city or region.
The Industrial Internet of Things can also be distinguished from the private IoT. Here, individual machines or entire systems are networked with each other. The aim is to increase efficiency:
The basic building block for this new level of technology is radio-frequency identification (RFID for short). It enables a receiver device to identify and localize the sender using contactless transmission.
IIoT is often equated with the term Industry 4.0, but this is not correct. The latter term refers to a digitalization project that will only be fully implementable in the future. The prerequisites for this fourth industrial revolution include the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI).
The use of IIoT is constantly being extended to new sectors of the economy. In addition to the automotive, logistics, transportation and energy industries, hospitals and the public sector are already reaping the benefits of an omni-channel network: the data collected can be used to monitor inventories, control traffic flows and prevent bottlenecks, for example.
In the private sector, smart devices are part of the IoT:
The Internet of Things is based on several interlinked technologies
IoT devices are very popular: according to an IDC study, a double-digit growth rate is expected in global spending on the Internet of Things. Consumers are expected to spend over 1 trillion USD per year on smart devices as early as 2022.
Consumers hope that everyday tasks can be made easier or even completely automated. At the same time, their use is expected to reduce energy waste. But is this really the case?
Consumers are increasingly asking whether the design, consumption and service life of the devices make sense from a sustainability perspective. As Welt reported, sustainable electronics is “not an easy topic” for the industry. At least that’s how the head of consumer technology at the German IT industry association Bitkom put it.
Due to the permanent connection to electricity and Wi-Fi, some smart devices consume more energy than they can save through their use. Even if the connected devices can often remain in standby mode, the cloud servers used to operate the home network are constantly consuming power.
Energy consumption for the manufacture and disposal of smart devices is another aspect that needs to be taken into account in this calculation. How long an IoT device has to be used to compensate for this expense is often disproportionate to its average lifespan. Ultimately, this only saves the consumer money – and by no means always. The overall energy balance is not taken into account in these statistics.
The software of IoT devices often does not allow for comprehensive updates. This means that their technology simply becomes outdated after some time. A new device is needed to take advantage of certain newer functions.
The built-in hardware can be another argument against the environmental friendliness of smart devices: It is not only the use of materials that is an irritant for many environmentalists, but also their design. One example from everyday life is new types of smoke detectors that cannot have their batteries replaced. In the same way, many smartphones cannot be repaired in the event of a defect. If a malfunction occurs, they are often a case for the garbage can – and the manufacturers are particularly happy about this.
But the consumer also bears responsibility here: If investing in the repair of an old device is out of the question in the first place, the demand for products with ever shorter life cycles will continue. And this means there is no incentive to manufacture more sustainable devices.
Almost everyone is familiar with the headlines about smart devices and surveillance:
“Is Alexa a spy? What Amazon’s speaker is listening in on” or “Hey Siri, how many people are listening in?” However, the fear that our data is being used for advertising purposes is actually one of the less frightening concerns.
Amazon subsidiary Ring has repeatedly been the subject of much discussion: The smart home manufacturer hit the headlines in 2018 after recordings from cameras were allegedly transmitted unencrypted and could be viewed by employees in real time.
The next scandal followed around a year later. Due to a security vulnerability, hackers were able to gain access to user accounts, watch camera recordings live and even speak directly to residents via a speaker function.
In January 2020, the non-profit organization Electronic Frontier Foundation reported that Ring’s app was still transferring its customers’ personal data to third-party providers for analysis and marketing purposes.
As Link11 reported, telecommunications provider Telenet was also the victim of cyberattacks in January 2020. Hackers offered a list of almost half a million access accounts for routers and IoT devices in forums. While the publication of this data list was public, such lists are usually traded in forums and sold at high prices.
According to a new IoT study by Computerwoche, more and more German companies are using the Internet of Things to their advantage: AI, blockchain and robotics are the most common applications.
At the same time, hacker attacks on clouds, denial of service attacks, and malware that gains access to the IoT via smart devices are just some of the challenges posed by increasing networking in industry.
