The Internet of Things (IoT) is beginning to take the world by storm, but it is three other technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and fog computing, which are helping to drive its development and make it even more useful. When these technologies are combined, they are able to radically transform what IoT is capable of. Here, we’ll look at each of these technologies to show their importance for IoT development.
AI and the IoT
IoT devices are often referred to as smart devices. But actually, on their own, they are not that smart. They can take sensory readings, share that information through their internet connection and follow preprogrammed instructions or carry out tasks that are sent to them.
To make them truly smart, AI is needed to analyse all the data that IoT devices collect. And they can be made even smarter when machine learning is used as it gives them the ‘intelligence’ to make informed decisions based on previous learning. In this sense, IoT devices are like primitive animals which can sense and act, however, when AI technology is added, it is like giving them a brain.
Combining IoT and AI offers enormous potential. In the NHS, for example, it will enable patients at home to use IoT devices to monitor a range of important health factors, such as blood pleasure, heart rate and blood sugar levels which can enable IoT-AI systems to remotely diagnose issues and advise the patient about any changes they need to make with regard to lifestyle or medication. They can also be used to trigger emergency call outs or community nurse visits if needed.
In industry, the use of IoT devices to monitor the health of critical equipment enables AI to predict when maintenance issues will arise. This means enterprises can undertake preventative measures to stop breakdowns happening before they occur and this ensures that operations can carry on without interruption. This can be applied in places such as data centres, manufacturing plants and nuclear power plants. It’s already being used by both Boeing and Rolls Royce to monitor aircraft engines during flight.
Blockchain and IoT
By combining blockchain technology with IoT, enterprises and their customers are able to guarantee that data is authentic and that products and their components are genuine. For example, when using IoT devices to track goods through the manufacturing process, each component can be given a unique digital ID enabling its history and movements to be stored in indelible, tamper-proof blockchain repositories. As a result, businesses and consumers can be assured the product is as described. For example, someone buying a computer could be confident that the components inside were not counterfeits or someone buying oranges could ensure that they were organically grown.
Fog computing and IoT
A key factor in the success of IoT is cloud technology which enables vast quantities of data to be transmitted, stored and analysed. However, as the IoT grows, the volume of data being collected is expanding exponentially. As a result, the cloud on its own is becoming less able to deal with the real-time requirements of bandwidth-heavy applications. For example, imagine all the sensors needed to fully operate an IoT, self-driving car. These vehicles need to process data exceptionally quickly, yet with so many sensors and so much data being created it would be impossible to get the reaction times needed using a satellite for connectivity.
The solution comes in the form of fog computing, a technology that uses distributed cloud capabilities. Essentially, fog computing extends the cloud architecture to the device itself, so that data can be processed and analysed in real time at the actual location. In this way, only the processed data needs to be transmitted to the cloud, reducing bandwidth usage and cutting down the amount of centralised storage needed.
The AI, blockchain and fog combination
While these technologies provide powerful outcomes for the IoT, using them in conjunction multiplies the benefits. If we look at the drones that retailers like Amazon are experimenting with at the moment, AI, blockchain and fog computing would enable them to be far more effective. They could ensure that their components do not fail, that they take the most effective routes, and that they are able to manoeuvre around obstacles in their path, even at night. Fog computing ensures the data is processed on the drone, AI can make decisions regarding obstacle avoidance and blockchain makes sure that that data being used to make these decisions is authentic (i.e. preventing it being hacked and remotely controlled).
Conclusion
Together, AI, blockchain and fog computing are three technologies that are expanding the potential of the IoT. Individually, each one adds new and exciting capabilities, however, when they are working together they provide a synergy which is driving the development of the IoT in ways that make it more useful and powerful than ever before.
The health insurance sector is finding itself in a whirlwind of change. For insurers, this means getting an understanding of the domain’s benefits and tech stack powering the change.
New-age healthcare space or digital health ecosystem, as it’s usually called, is engineered to keep patients on a pedestal. The transformation of healthcare has created an ecosystem where every medical industry stakeholder and process has been operating to keep patients at the center stage.
While this patient-first system is coming organically to the caregivers, insurers – the third key stakeholder of the healthcare sector – are finding the transition a bit challenging. In this article, we are going to look into the capabilities that payers need to inhibit to survive the growing competitiveness in the digital health insurance world.
The insurance industry is staring at a cultural shift that will put people’s well-being at a primary stage. The shift has forced the sector to move from paying financial compensation to injury, illness, or loss towards the end goal of mitigating or preventing them.
A key role in bringing this shift to health insurance digital transformation has been brought along by technology adoption by every custom healthcare software development company.
In this article, we will dive into the technologies insurance companies can adopt in the digital health services landscape. But first, let us look into the benefits that would make the domain an active participant in the changing landscape of digital transformation in healthcare.
The Benefits of a Digitalized Insurance Sector
1. Digital solutions help people make healthy decisions
Digital healthcare solutions powered by wearables and insurance-inclined apps help people: prevent diseases, better diagnostic, manage a chronic condition, limit lifestyle risks. A number of modern users expect their health and care providers, insurers to provide them digital wellness solutions.
New-gen insurers, by offering consumer-centric programs like health quantification, etc. can meet this consumer expectation.
2. Digital platforms help insurers connect with the users
Digital tools and digital health platforms provide insurers the ability to give their clients a welcoming, interactive platform using which the insurers can create an ‘I care’ strategy. The platforms do not just act as a mode to have positive interactions with the customer but also gather data that can help make processes and values efficient.
3. Insurance digitalization help lower risk and cost
Digital healthcare services help make a detailed picture of users’ overall health. Upon the data, the insurers can create an approach that can be used for personalizing premiums through dynamic pricing. The data-driven approach also enables risk assessment that enables accelerated underwriting.
According to a Capgemini report, the use of data-driven assessment helps insurers adopt a more value-driven care model where the digital tools provide a transparent picture of the dynamic pricing model.
4. Digitalization in the insurance space optimize customer experience
Digital space helps healthcare insurance service providers optimize the customers’ experience by increasing the number of touchpoints and providing new services. Here are some of the use cases of how it happens:
Digital health insurance plans for managing personal health
Virtual healthcare delivery
Connected vehicle and smart-home solutions
Voice technology for advising customers.
5. Digital tools can secure data dominance
The insurance sector is producing more data than ever before. They have been building and scaling big data ecosystems to create visualized data sets that can suggest benefits plans according to the success factors.
Providers and healthcare app developers that are best able to use big data are delivering personalized customer experience, bettering retention, and are creating more accurate quotes – all at a lot faster speed compared to traditional approaches.
These and a plethora of other benefits are a guarantee that is dependent on the adoption of a new-gen technology set. Technology in health insurance has become a driving force that can take the domain towards end-to-end digitalization.
Let us take a closer look at some of the technologies we suggest our insurance sector partners, in our capacity as a healthcare app development company USA and India, to integrate into their solutions.
3 Technologies Aiding Insurance Digitalization
Machine learning
Insurers, as they process claims, gather a large amount of data from multiple sources. Incorporation of machine learning in the process and healthcare mobility solutions can help build customer relationship management systems that offer targeted service and eliminate churn.
The industry is also exploring ways to use the technology for helping doctors deliver proactive, timely, and cost-effective care to patients.
Internet of Things
With over 1 billion wearable devices active in the market, the healthcare industry is no more unsure about the technology’s capabilities. The biosensors present inside the wearables are getting more sophisticated to become links in the digitalized healthcare system which lays emphasis on home-based treatments.
Through the data collected by the sensors, insurance companies can help wary customers of problem signs before they develop into diseases.
Distributed ledgers
When a patient interacts with a healthcare system, they talk to a number of parties: doctors, pharmacists, insurance companies, etc. A distributed ledger can enable all the stakeholders to be on the same platform, making the interactions and following transmissions, transactions transparent and real-time.
An example of this can be seen in how the patients no more have to wait for the insurance companies to release payment since the latter is updated of the stage where they are at in the healthcare system.
One of the key resources in the healthcare economy is data – a resource that places insurers in the central of the provider side of the digitalization landscape. A number of insurance companies are making use of data to become active participants in healthcare transformation, while there are still a number of providers who are waiting for the digitalization lighting to strike.
Whatever the case may be on the insurer end, the other side of the reality is that members are appreciating insurers’ digitalization efforts by increasing the usage of value-added services. For an insurance company, it means that now is the golden time to enter the space. We can help you.
Our team can help you make an infrastructure that can bring you on a shared transparent, value-plus platform as your customers. Contact our team of insurance industry digitalization experts.
For the past 15 years, the electronic health record (EHR) has been the cornerstone of digital hospitals and a primary repository for clinical data. The strategy for most healthcare providers has been to integrate as much data as possible into the EHR so that clinicians need to work with only “one single source of truth” when treating their patients.
However, there is a problem with EHRs. They are simply not designed to incorporate data from other sources, such as medical devices, asset management systems, location services, wearables or any other secondary non-clinical data. These sources of data offer tremendous value for improving health outcomes but, because of the difficulty in incorporating these data sources, are not being used.
In the coming years, most healthcare providers will prioritize aggregating new data sources (and thereby exploring new use cases). They will be seeking to not only implement new business models, but also to leverage the investments they’ve already made in new capabilities and technologies centered around internet of things (IoT) platforms, artificial intelligence, big data and robotics.
Storing such data in a single clinical silo, like an EHR, is neither practical nor efficient. Rather, healthcare providers need to focus on data aggregation and orchestration platforms (DAOP) that can collect data across the ecosystem and deliver actionable insights which will impact the day-to-day delivery of care. These platforms help move healthcare providers away from a reactive approach to managing healthcare data to one that’s more proactive, automated and insights-driven.
This is because the latest generation of DAOPs is architected as a collection of different open, modular and granular services, provisioned using the cloud and delivered as a service, which is enabled thanks to emerging server less designs. As these intelligent layers of software and data continue to be integrated in advances in big data, analytics, artificial intelligence and automation, and root themselves in agile/DevOps practices, they create low-cost, increasingly automated and smart agile workflows.
The EHR remains an important system — but it will be only one source of data feeding the DAOP. It will continue as a digital application focused on documentation, internal work flows and decision support within the hospital, while the DAOP will act as an engine, enabling new and innovative business models across the patient ecosystem.
Data, interoperability and APIs
Accessing and harnessing data across a variety of systems is the core of what the DAOP does. Once the aggregated data has been transformed and ingested into a centralized data lake, it can be consumed as microservices through a structured and well-managed API gateway.
The use of RESTful (Representational State Transfer) APIs, or RESTful web services, combined with the rapidly emerging FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) standard, is accelerating and standardizing healthcare interoperability. FHIR-based RESTful APIs enable healthcare data-sharing across a federated and fragmented environment without necessitating data migration or locking up data in centralized solutions, such as EHRs. This is important because locking up data in EHRs and other such systems can reduce an organization’s control of the data and lead to prolonged time to value from new ideas and innovations.
Setting a complete healthcare API strategy
FHIR-based RESTful APIs are just the tip of the iceberg. On their own, they do not solve problems like data fragmentation, lack of standardization or sub-optimization across a complex ecosystem. To fully leverage the benefits of FHIR and APIs, more must be done than simply adding an API on top of an existing system of record, because the raw data is typically not in a state or format that lends itself to interoperability without manipulation. Most systems of records, such as the EHR, store data in a proprietary format, which needs to be manipulated before it can be shared. Maintaining a loose coupling of applications is best done outside of the EHR and enabled by a FHIR-based data lake.
To be successful, a complete healthcare API strategy should:
Address the differences between the raw data from the systems of records and the data requirements of FHIR and other interoperability standards. Data transformation and translation against industry standards helps to standardize the data into a canonical form.
Hide the complexity of the underlying data environment to the data consumer. APIs and the platform behind them provide the opportunity to encapsulate the systems of record so the end user doesn’t have to search through multiple systems to find the data.
Consider opportunities to improve and enrich the raw data to maximize its use. Once data is aggregated and standardized behind the API, questions can be asked of the data that could not be asked before. Opportunities exist to enrich the data with provenance, security, privacy, conformance and other types of metadata. Enrichment can also come in the form of new insights gleaned from the data through analytics and evaluation of the data against knowledge bases.
APIs should be the gateway into a robust data processing platform capable of maximizing the usefulness of the data behind it. In this way, the challenges EHRs and other systems of record present with aggregating important sources of data can be overcome without undue burden and cost to the healthcare organization.
The introduction of IoT in India has brought the next level industrial revolution in the country. Besides in the new “Digital India” program launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, IoT plays a prominent part in the contribution. With a vision to create $15 billion of the IoT industry by 2020, the government has drafted a strategic roadmap to bring India on the global IoT map.
But before we discuss the impact of IoT in India, it is important to understand what this term exactly means. More often we get to hear new jargon like AI(Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), Big Data, Cloud computing, Blockchain,etc. with the evolution of technology. Similar to these technical buzzwords is the term IoT also known as Internet of Things.
Internet of Things or IoT is basically the extension of internet connectivity into physical devices and day to day objects. In vague terms, IoT empowers “smart” devices for sending and receiving information. The IoT devices are mainly smart watches, smart health wear gadgets, smart home appliances, voice assistant devices, etc. These IoT devices are embedded with electronics, internet connectivity, and other kinds of hardware. The devices communicate and interact through the internet and are easily remotely monitored or controlled.
Getting back to the subject, as per ET CIO, “the IoT market in India will make at least $15 billion by 2020”. It accounts for nearly 5% of the total global market. Also, the usage of IoT devices in India has shown a significant increase from approximately 200 million units in 2016 to 2.7 billion units by this year.
The IoT devices generate data that fuels innovation not only in solutions that are targeted at end-users but also in manufacturing processes and creating new business models. Whereas, according to the NASSCOM report, IoT adoption in India is expected to keep the country in lead. In fact, the IoT industry is already imminent to rejig the Indian manufacturing industrial landscape.
What are the IoT Trends in India for the Year 2020?
With the potential to enhance the connectivity of everything everywhere, the Internet of Things (IoT) has brought a massive change in the manner of doing things. Currently, India has a landscape of 120 IoT firms! These firms hold required technical skills, driving the IoT revolution and making India one of the key countries poised to implement large scale IoT projects.
Ever since the technology of IoT in India has been introduced, the nation has already started working on the latest upcoming trends. Here are the top IoT trends in India for the year 2020:
Smart Factories
The journey to create the fourth industrial revolution also known as Industry 4.0 is the project for developing smart factories that are agile and autonomous in nature. These digitally-enabled smart factories will be optimizing resources for manufacturing to provide high-quality output.
Smart Homes, Smarter Grids
The IoT adoption in India is massively going to be effective in the utility management processes for electricity, water, gas, and sewerage. Further, the trend of smart homes with smart grids will improve the applicability of infrastructure and will help in the efficient management of resources.
Data-Driven Healthcare Sector
One of the best IoT trends in India for 2020 is bringing advancement in the healthcare sector. With the help of the latest IoT trends, the service providers and hospitals in India can easily get access to real-time data. This would further help in mitigating the risk of diseases and in remotely monitoring patients.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) with IoT
This trend will continue to grow higher in 2020 and the nation will witness a lot of positive development in this platform. The AI techniques will be used in analyzing the huge bulk of information collected through IoT devices. The amalgamation of AI, Big Data and IoT will surely pave a way of the next generation experience for end-users.
Apart from these top four IoT trends in India for 2020, the Indian industries are also experiencing growth of segments like connected building and homes, smart lifestyles, etc. which are quite recent concepts.
Will IoT Adoption in India Lead to the Growth of Cyber Risks Too?
No matter how far the evolution of technology takes place, a hacker’s mindset will always remain the same. The loop of attempting cyber attack goes on with identifying weaknesses in the network or a system, exploiting vulnerabilities and repeat! Whereas now, since the advanced connected devices are being introduced, a new addition to the cyber attack surface has further expanded.
These IoT technology-based smart devices like home security sensors, wireless applications, smart grids, etc., offer more options to access points than ever before. These sensors and smart devices present great opportunities for hackers to find vulnerability or loopholes.
Although the developing landscape of IoT has made it easier and faster to carry out day to day activities, it is important to make sure that no cyber risk is prevailing in the back door. And when we talk about cyber risks associated with the IoT, security and privacy could be considered as one of the most critical issues.
With the emergence of 5G technology, the IoT devices will become more empowered to collect, store and share data across other platforms. Due to lack of right security and privacy measures, the generated data can be left open for identity theft or misuse of personal information. Also, insufficient security risk assessment tools and irregular IoT security testing of devices is another major challenge to deal with.
As for organizations that have adopted the latest IoT trends, it is essential for them to identify and understand the vulnerabilities existing in the connected devices and systems. These vulnerabilities may turn into severe cyber threat postures for the entire IT infra of the organization if not patched from time to time.
The year 2020 is undoubtedly going to have leaps in innovation along with unpredictable data breaches and cyber attacks. As our responsibility towards cybersecurity it is important to ensure that our devices are hard to access and do not fall victim to cyber threat actors. For this, organizations must implement security awareness training for their employees and help them in navigating IoT operations in order to secure the network and data of the company.
Implementation of IoT devices can be all fun and games unless you realize how vulnerable the latest technology can leave the cybersecurity of your organization. Remember, prevention is better than cure, do not wait for a devastating cyber attack to take place. Now is the right time to step up for proper cybersecurity measures and make IoT work fruitful for you with the right IoTsecurity testing.
Internet of Things in healthcare has more benefits than one can imagine.
The application of IoT in healthcare can improve the way things work in the medical world. From improved machine control to virtual medical assistance, IoT use cases in healthcare is the future. It can save the lives of patients with a fast diagnosis of diseases as well as finding an apt cure for it.
The application of the technology has become so far-fetched that there is hardly a question on What is IoT or how it works.
Like every new piece of technology, it has both advantages and disadvantages associated with it. IoT in healthcare has its own challenges and limitations which can impede the usage of the technology. But going by the joint advancement efforts of skilled IoT app development company and healthcare application development company, it can be ensured that we are reaching a time when the solution will remain safe.
Where Does IoT Fit in Healthcare?
A lot of times it happens that patients don’t get medical attention on time which can harm their health severely. The delay is caused due to many reasons- unavailable rooms in the hospital, traffic on the road, unavailability of extra doctors, delay in the identification of diseases, etc.
Most of the time, people have no idea that they are suffering from an illness. To identify any signs, a visit to the doctor is required. If heart rate checkups, blood pressure level, sugar level, etc. are regularly monitored then patients can be alarmed about any upcoming threats to their health.
Also, sometimes going to the doctor for something as simple as a stomach ache and paying a heavy fee is just not worth it. These could be easily solved if there was a way to connect doctors and patients virtually.
Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) is a network of connected devices that collect data in real-time. IoMT is one of the key applications of IoT in healthcare and has the potential to solve medical issues. According to the IoT trends 2021, the IoT in healthcare market size was $22.5 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach $72.02 billion in the year 2021. It will provide personalized care and individual data-driven medical solutions.
Not only will IoMT be able to prevent any upcoming diseases but also will be able to cure the ones that have already been caused. The technology has been made as wearables so that patients can be monitored easily without visiting the doctor.
The Internet of Medical Things has divided segments for each medical issue being faced by the healthcare industry. The on-body segment focuses on customer health wearables and other medical-grade wearables. Some products used in this segment are Fitbit, Samsung medical, etc.
The in-home segment aims at an individual’s personal health tracker solutions. This segment includes personal emergency response systems (PERS), telehealth virtual visits, and remote patient monitoring (RPM).
The community segment consists of five components: Kiosks that dispense products and provide services, mobility services to patients’ vehicles, emergency response intelligence, point-of-care devices that act like medical camps, and logistics that keep a record of all the medical equipment and goods.
Another segment is the in-clinic segment. This segment includes IoMT devices that can be used inside a clinic to provide services. The medical solutions of the in-clinic segment also provide point-of-care devices.
The last segment of IoMT is the in-hospital segment which includes various solutions for several areas of management. Asset management monitors, personnel management, patient flow management, inventory management, and environment and energy monitoring are some of the devices in this segment.
If we look at the role of IoT in healthcare sector at a stakeholder level, we can see the technology making an industry-wide impact.
For patients
Wearable devices like glucometer, heart rate cuffs, fitness bands, etc. give patients access to personalized attention. The constant tracking ability that these devices offer can have a major impact on people who live alone as it can send alerts to their family members.
For physicians
Through the mode of wearable and home monitoring devices embedded with IoT technology, physicians are able to track patients’ health a lot more effectively. The data gathered from the IoT devices can help doctors identify the best treatment and monitoring process for patients.
For hospitals
In hospitals, IoT devices embedded with sensors can be used for tracking the real-time location of medical enablers and equipment such as defibrillators, wheelchairs, oxygen pumps, nebulizers, and other similar monitoring devices. In addition to equipment, it also enables the analysis of the deployment of the medical staff at multiple locations.
These devices can also help with asset management such as environmental monitoring and pharmacy inventory control, for example, refrigerator temperature and humidity control.
Through its multi-stakeholder involvement, IoT solves a number of pain points that are prevalent in a healthcare ecosystem.
Inefficient patient care
Medical process mistakes
Supply chain management
Medical research
Rural healthcare management
What are The Benefits of IoT in Healthcare?
IoT in healthcare is helping the way hospitals attend to the patients. While the rapid population growth is not helping to control the increased illness, old age, and other health issues, the introduction of IoT in healthcare may do it. IoT can also reduce the cost of medical treatment to a great low. The following are a few of the most noteworthy advantages of the Internet of Things:
Simultaneous reporting and monitoring
IoT in the healthcare industry has enabled doctors to monitor the real-time conditions of a patient which can prevent any emergency situations like heart failure, diabetes, asthma attack, cardiac arrest, etc. The impact of IoT in healthcare has made it easy for doctors to attend to multiple patients in a matter of minutes.
The medical reports of patients including blood sugar levels, ECG reports, X-rays, etc. are stored in the cloud and can be accessed with a mobile device whenever needed.
End-to-end connectivity and affordability
The Internet of things in healthcare applications can allow a better connection and use of the latest technology to enhance connectivity and data sharing. With technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and other features, tracking and identifying illness becomes easy and less time-consuming.
This also reduces the overall time and cost of treatment. With technology, the cost of treatment will reduce by a huge sum, allowing patients to be treated easily.
Data analysis and data assortment
The use of IoT in healthcare involves storing massive data about the patient’s medical history. The IoT device also has to send data to other devices without any issues occurring in the process. Manually analyzing such huge data is impossible but devices can do it.
IoT devices can gather, analyze, track, send and receive data with the help of a cloud base. The cloud base is required as the size of data is huge and cannot be saved on the server. What can help make this adoption further and make it more efficient in terms of data storage and transfer is the Blockchain of Things.
Real-time tracking and alerts
Imagine how many lives can be saved with emergency alerts sent by patients. The Internet of Medical Things has made this possible. With the help of a device, a patient’s medical information is recorded in real-time and can be sent to the doctor. In the case of any threat, the doctor will be informed immediately and can provide assistance accordingly.
Check-up on the go
With the help of IoT healthcare devices, patients can easily contact doctors on their mobile devices and get immediate assistance. With the latest IoT devices, doctors can identify any ailments on the go all the while saving travel costs and time. IoT in healthcare will also be able to dispense medicines from machines as per their prescription. This will be done by connecting the patient’s device with the medicine dispensing machine.
Internet of Things (IoT) Use Cases in Healthcare
The Internet of things healthcare is being used for some great work in the healthcare industry. From monitoring the patients to virtually assisting them, applications of the Internet of Things are immensely vast and diverse. Here are some of the use cases of IoT technology in healthcare:
Remote patient monitoring
It is one of the most common use cases of the technology in healthcare that an IoT mobile app development company works around. The applications are built to collect health vitals like blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, etc from the patients that are not physically present in the healthcare facility. The algorithms can then help analyze the vitals and recommend treatment or simply create an alert.
Reducing wait time
Often a patient’s condition gets worse while waiting for things to be arranged or rooms to clear out in a hospital. With IoT in the healthcare industry, the waiting time can be reduced by more than 50%. When it comes to occupancy, IoT can track all the rooms and find the empty ones for the incoming patients who need immediate assistance.
Keep track of hardware maintenance
Every hospital has devices, machines, and equipment that are used to sustain human lives. Availability of these tools is necessary in order to save as many lives as possible. With IoT technology, hospitals can not only track the types of equipment but also be informed when a piece of equipment is about to fail. This helps the hospital in getting new devices before it’s too late.
Tracking employees and patients
A hospital has huge buildings and it becomes impossible to track where each and every employee or doctor is at a particular moment. It is the same for all the patients as well. With IoT technology, tracking the patients and the staff is easy.
This technology is also being used to track the assets of the hospital for security reasons. It is a highly efficient technology to track objects or people without any additional cost or efforts.
Drug management
Medicines are now being monitored by IoT devices to ensure the proper dosage and tracking of the effects of the medicine. It can also remind patients to take their medicine on time and in the right amount. If there is an overdose or underdose of medicine then the patient will be alerted.
Identification of chronic diseases
The Internet of things healthcare technology identifies any chronic illness a patient is suffering from. How that works is: a patient enters his symptoms and the device matches it with the already existing information to identify the disease.
Wearable devices like Fitbit are great trackers of heart rate, sugar levels, and blood pressure levels. Healthcare app development solutions for wearables and mobile apps have made people more health-conscious and aware of their medical conditions.
A few examples of the Internet of Things applications in healthcare
Healthcare IoT devices are specimens of technical brilliance. These come in handy with loads of benefits of IoT like minimizing the waiting time for emergency rooms, patient, staff, and inventory tracking, discipline in drug management, and checking that critical hardware is available at all times.
Hearables
The hearing aid has been around for ages thanks to the genius of Miller Reese Hutchison. With time, these devices underwent massive changes and are the ones currently powered by IoT have transformed the manner of interaction for people with hearing loss. These hearables are synced with smartphones via Bluetooth. Sounds can be filtered, equalized, and tailored to create real-world sound.
Moodables
Stress can often cause declining mental health and there are times when patients with mental disorders or neurovascular problems need to uplift their moods. They are wearables mounted on the head that pass low-intensity currents to the brain. These electrical impulses help to alleviate the pain and lighten up the mind.
Smart pills
Smart pills are edible IoT pills that are used to monitor our body functioning and alert if any anomaly arises. They have micro-sensors that are ingestible and dissolve in the stomach. The body too is attached to a device that accumulates the data transmitted via the sensors. One can easily access the data through their smartphones. This is one of the IoT advantages which proves how powerful the technology is.
Healthcare charting
Patient charting by doctors requires a lot of time and effort. It’s a fascinating thing to know how IoT is implemented and through voice commands, doctors can summon a patient’s vital clinical information like medical history, demographics, diagnoses, medications, treatment plans, progress notes, immunization plans and schemes, allergies, tests (X-Ray, cardiology, radiology, urine, blood, etc.) and the results. Augmedix is one such device that does that.
Computer vision technology
A major development of IoT in healthcare projects is the drones which have proven to replicate visual perceptions ergo influencing decision making. These drones are powered by AI and have been known visually impaired people to alert about obstacles and avoid them.
Challenges Faced in Internet of Things (IoT) Based Healthcare System
Even though IoT is being helpful in the healthcare industry, it has its limitations and challenges. Let us look at the adoption challenges of IoT in healthcare:
Privacy and security
Though the IoT benefits in healthcare are many yet we cannot ignore the challenges it is facing. The biggest threat to healthcare in IoT is data privacy and security. The massive data that is being transferred and stored on a regular basis can be hacked and used against the patient and the doctor.
Hackers can create fake IDs to buy drugs and medicines only to misuse them further. A solution to this pestering issue, however, lies in following the compliance set up by the government for healthcare application development USA.
Multiple devices and protocol integration
Everyone owns a different device and this difference in devices is causing problems with the performance of the technology. The internet of medical things has yet to find a solution regarding the compatibility of different devices with the Internet of Things network. The connectivity of different devices slows down the entire process of data transfer, analysis, and retrieval.
Overloading and inaccuracy
Storing patient data means storing an impossible amount of data. Even with the internet of healthy things, the huge amount of data is becoming difficult to manage by the doctors. If this continues then the decision-making will be affected putting many lives in danger all at once. The more devices being connected to the network, the more will be the inflow of data.
Cost of the technology
It must be a surprise to see Internet of Things cost in the challenges section. But the truth is IoT can reduce the treatment cost for a common man but hasn’t been able to do it yet. The Internet of things and healthcare have yet to make things cost-effective and it will take time. It has created the medical tourism situation where people travel to developing countries to get the treatment at a much cheaper cost. The cost of IoT app development is also higher than the usual cost of mobile app development.
The Future Scope of Internet of Things in Healthcare
IoT has a lot of potentials and it’s not only in healthcare. Many IoT healthcare companies are working on new ways to use this technology to help our medical world. According to the IoT healthcare market trends, the industry is expected to grow to $8.9 trillion in the year 2020.
Even though IoT has challenges and limitations, it will not stop the technology from growing. The need for IoT in healthcare is huge and it can help the industry immensely. It can reach every patient from all over the world and connect doctors with patients. There is no denying that IoT has already made a huge impact and is only set to grow further.
It is a matter of time when the medical industry will be run mostly by IoT technology and will be treating patients in less time and low cost of treatment. Google and Apple are companies trying to make IoT and healthcare success and soon we shall see iOS and Android devices interacting with our medicines.
We at Anteelo have IoT app developers in New York and India that are ready to help you with your app idea. We have a proven track record for making IoT real-time applications. Contact us today!
From a time when an old school telegraph was considered to be the hottest medium of establishing communication to now when Facebook has doubled down its effort on the development of a mind-reading device, social media has already crossed several stages of evolution. Stages that have established it as a sector that is here to stay and grow. One of the pivotal factors behind the unprecedented growth that the domain is witnessing both in terms of users and scope of constant growth is the technology used in social media.
These number projections are the direct result of the direct influence of technology on social media. The constant inclusion of communication and content creation, distribution aiding technologies like native mobile apps – getting business access to users’ camera and GPS – geotagging, AI for image recognition, etc. have helped shape the current stature of the social media domain on a global scale.
In this article, we will be briefly revisiting how far social media technology innovation has come since Six Degrees, the platform that ruled 1997 followed by a look into the new technologies for social media.
The Evolution of Social Media – A Timeline and Key Events
The future of social media technology began in 1997 with SixDegrees.com, the first social media site. The platform enabled you to create a profile page, curate a list of connections, and send messages to your network. At its peak, the website was used by over one million users before being bought over for $125 million and facing an ultimate demise in 2001.
The failure of Six Degrees, like its success, was followed by a number of social media networks. Around the time and early 2000s a number of new social media platforms like Friendster, AmIHotorNot.com, MySpace emerged and witnessed their decline in the domain.
However, there were a few that, at the back of their strong business model ready for growth from day one. Here are some of the social media platforms that continue to come on top of the social media landscape in terms of user count –
In addition to these, there were some other key names in the social media technology evolution landscape – LinkedIn, foursquare. Grindr, Pinterest, Snapchat, amongst others.
An unvalidated fact behind the growth and sustainability of the selected social media platforms can be seen in the incorporation of the right technology in the domain. Let us delve into it deeper.
The Importance of Technology in Social Media
The role of technology in social media evolution, although starts with the advent of smartphones and laptops on a precise level, begins with mobile apps. In 2019 alone, it was estimated by a Lyfemarketing report that over 91% of all social media users use social channels through mobile devices.
There can be a number of reasons behind the rise in mobile application adoption for social media usage:
Convenience in terms of not having to open a laptop and opening the application within three clicks.
Integration with mobile in-built features like camera, location, microphone, etc.
Ease of capturing and sharing content
We believe that up until this point you must have gathered the need for social media application development. However, the list of the impact of technology on social media doesn’t just end with one component. There are a number of other technologies like APIs, geotagging, QR codes, etc which have contributed to making social media where it stands today.
Technology incorporation makes social media accessible, safe, and real-time in addition to making the sector operate seamlessly with users’ experience through the mode of automation, integration with other social media applications, and eCommerce.
With the benefits of technology and social media peeked into, let us move on to the list of technologies that are helping social media app developers take the sector to its next evolution set.
Technologies Driving the Future of Social Media
1. RFID – Radio Frequency Identification Tags
RFID, in layman terms, means a small computer chip that can store information about an individual or object. Every chip comes with a unique serial number that can be tied to the information present on the chip. Let us give you a practical application of this technology through this example – Suppose you are at a music concert and you scan your RFID device with an RFID device that has social features integrated into it. By simply bringing your RFID device to the other one, you will be able to Like a band on Instagram or Facebook or download a couple of their music tracks on your device.
The growing popularity of RFID in the event and eCommerce domain (through the mode of NFC) has led to a number of social networking app development companies integrating RFID into their mobile applications.
2. Augmented Reality
AR and mixed reality are some of the most popular social media application features. There are a number of use cases that social media houses experiment with when integrating AR with their applications but the one that has witnessed mass popularity is the use of face filters. Popularized by Snapchat, AR-driven filters are used by both individuals and businesses to deliver engaging content.
Another example of business-level usage of AR in social media can be seen in social media advertisements. Last year, Snapchat created an AR-based app for Snap Original where Bhad Bhabie interacted with the users as if they were interacting in the real world.
3. Artificial Intelligence
Out of all the new-age technologies that you will read about impacting the social media sector, the one name which will be placed on the top is Artificial Intelligence.
AI is a prime component of every social platform active in the market today. This is the number one reason why the technology is now involved in the social media app development cost on a default note.
Facebook utilizes advanced machine learning for a number of tasks: recognizing faces in poss to targeting users for advertisements and even for strengthening their search functionality.
LinkedIn makes use of AI for offering job recommendations, suggesting people whom they’d like to connect, and sending them specific posts for their feed.
Snapchat uses the capability of computer vision for tracking physical features and overlaying filters that move with them in real-time.
These business examples are a validation of how AI is a crucial part of all the different genres of the social media domain.
4. Blockchain
Decentralized social platforms is one of the most up and coming genres of the social media sector. There are a number of use cases of social media and blockchain convergence which businesses from both sides are experimenting with. Here are some of them –
The social media networks depend on ad-based business models that share a common shortcoming: the creators are unequally compensated for their content on the platform. A smart contract can be put into use here for ensuring that the creators get the amount that their content is worth without any delay or unannounced deduction.
There are businesses working towards combating internet censorship. Usually, based on a distributed ledger, the individuals will be able to read and curate their own content with a surety that no entity will be able to block access to content.
5. IoT
The last in our list of social platform and technology trends is the Internet of Things. The technology is used heavily for social media monitoring and marketing purposes by some of the top names in the industry like N&W, Disney, and Tencent, etc.
Organizations are constantly on the lookout for an IoT skilled social media app development company that would help them create solutions around real-time monitoring of data and insights coming in from social media to help them make better business decisions.
Here were the five technologies which are taking the social media sector towards a new evolution era – one that will be a lot more open and transparent in nature. Want to be a part of the revolution? Contact our team of social media experts.
Dive into the many changes that now stare at the lending-centric consumer financial services landscape and how technologies are fueling the shift. Every once a decade, technology innovation and customer demand merge in a way that drastically changes the consumer-facing financial service sector.
For instance, when The Motley Fool, eTrade, and Intuit came into the market some decades ago, consumers took it upon themselves to personally manage their finances and invest their savings in places that would get them maximum returns.
In 2021, the financial service industry is again staring at disruption. A number of technological and economic factors have developed a perfect situation where people are deciding how they want to manage their pay, pay for services and goods, finance a car or home, or even how they want to borrow.
To answer these changes and shape the future of lending, a number of tech-driven consumer-facing financial services companies have entered the market to address this consumer behavior shift. The entrants have become the reason why lending has become one of the most profitable finance app ideas.
In this article, we will be diving into the many changes that now stare at the lending centric consumer financial services landscape and how technologies are fueling the shift.
What is Contributing to the Evolving Landscape of Digital Lending?
The changing space of digital lending transformation is bringing a remarkable shift in credit analysis and bank loans. The rise of technology progress and big data has led to a series of alternatives coming into the market questioning the credibility of credit score – a prime factor driving the lending industry.
When we dive into the changes that are taking place in one of the slowest transforming financial services, we can find four factors fueling the digitalization of the consumer financial services space –
Changing consumer behaviors – especially the COVID-19 driven behavior
Rapid technological changes
Changes in compliance and regulations
Innovations happening in the space of simplification of operating models.
The combination of these four factors has given birth to a time where consumer insights are blended with product innovations to make fintech consumer lending a lot more inclusive. In addition to serving only the high credit-worthy consumers, the future of the credit industry is now powered to involve consumer segments with low credit history (low-income households, students, freelancers, etc.).
The digital lending landscape has grown to an extent that it can now be categorized into three sectors –
The ultimate aim of the technology-induced digitalization innovations happening in the sector – across the three subsets – is to digitize the entire customer journey (from KYC to reporting) at speed and at scale at a level where the traditional lending system could never reach.
How is Digital Lending Changing With Technological Advancements?
1. A new way of vetting applicants have come on the surface
New credit mechanisms are building on the proposition that traditional ways of applicants’ approval on the basis of FICO credit score is an incomplete sign of applicants’ creditworthiness.
By using artificial intelligence, new models are being developed. These models factor in information surrounding thousands of data points like employment history, education details, and spending habits to verify if an applicant will be able to clear the debts on time. On the basis of these insights, a new credit score is coming to the surface as the future of consumer lending.
2. AI-backed strategy and sales streamlining
Digital lenders have started asking their partnered fintech app development companies to use machine learning for enhancing loans by making underwriting decisions. The algorithms can help validate if the applicants are telling the truth about their income level.
The process is best suited for people having an insufficient credit history, less income, or anyone who is charged higher interest because of the lack of financial data. Machine learning is also being used heavily for its ability to detect fraud through analysis of customer behavior backed by the time they spend answering applications’ questions, looking at the price options, etc.
3. Blockchain eliminating the need for intermediaries
Through the mode of blockchain, digital lending companies can develop a high trust, low-cost platform. With the complete loan process existing online, people will be able to keep a record of documents and transactions on an anonymous digital ledger platform thus eliminating the need for third parties and intermediaries.
4. Cloud computing solving digital lending sector uptime concerns
The most common corners of the lending sector are – security, storage, and 24*7 upkeep time. Cloud computing solves all these issues in addition to offering a series of additional benefits like
Secure connections
Cost-effective and time-efficient management
Disaster recovery
Simplified online processes
Automation of processes
While these technologies are playing a key role in bettering the state of digital lending, what is important for the sector to keep evolving. A way the sector can keep getting efficient is by knowing the trends that are waiting for them in 2021 as the future of consumer credit.
Digital Lending Market Trends 2021-22
1. NLP will better customer experience
Smart lending systems will be using NLP for recognizing and understanding customers’ questions and converting them into actionable data. There are multiple applications that the digital lending companies will be experimenting with in 2021 –
Lenders will be able to offer advice to basic queries through a chatbot
They will use the technology for analyzing customers’ feedback, getting insights that can help them improve the customer experience.
Analyze the data to better the credit scoring accuracy
2. Regulatory sandboxing
While the consumer lending sector needs constant innovation in order to develop and grow, it also needs regulation for ensuring security, safety, and ethics. Sandboxing is how both factors can be respected in the modern lending system.
It is the mode f testing innovative services in a controlled setting for the regulators to conduct their assessments before a complete rollout. The Compliance Assistance Sandbox (CAS) Policy, announced in 2019 highlights the process.
“After the [Consumer and Financial Protection Bureau or CFPB] evaluates the product or service for compliance with relevant law, an approved applicant that complies in good faith with the terms of the approval will have a ‘safe harbor’ from liability for specified conduct during the testing period. Approvals under the CAS Policy will provide protection from liability under the Truth in Lending Act, the Electronic Fund Transfer Act, and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.”
3. Greater omnichannel capabilities
Technology will be seamlessly connecting the lender with borrowers through a self-service holistic digital experience. The year will see borrowers picking up on the half application form which they started on their phone, on their laptops.
Omnichannel capabilities that make it easy for them to jump from one platform to another without any shift in experience is what would help the digital lenders rule the year while becoming one of the key mobile app development financial services.
4. Non-banking institutions will continue entering the space
We have already seen Amazon offering loans to small businesses and Apple announcing its credit card. All of these innovations are the advanced stages of companies’ capabilities and how they help their customers reach their goals.
The year will see the consumer finance market getting introduced with a greater number of P2P consumer lending organizations. Backed by the abilities of new-gen technologies like Blockchain and AI, consumer financing companies will be giving banking institutions tough competition.
Now that we have looked into the many ways consumer lending businesses are getting prepared to rule the sector through their partnership with a skilled fintech application development company, let us close the article by looking into some ways you can become the next big digital lender.
How Can You Become a Digital Lender?
There are a number of brands that have placed themselves in the future of the consumer financial at the back of their digital inclination.
Shifting from a traditional lending mindset to a digital bank-oriented one is not an easy task. There will be resistance to change, an unacceptance towards risk, and other things. A digital bank transformation will require a strategic foundation supported across all organization levels. As a lender, you will have to focus on offering an exceptional digital experience to your consumers. The last thing you would want is getting axed by Google on the Play Store at the back of a bad experience and lack of regulations-compliance assurance. Here are some things that we recommend on the basis of our extensive skill set as a financial software development company –
Provide transparent information on the approval guidelines
Develop new training material, gen-z inclined communication about new policies
Provide alternate channels to your consumers. Don’t force them to visit branches.
The secret sauce of your lending business success will be transparency and communication. The more open your business is, the more will be the chances of your consumers to choose alternative lending models. We can help you strategize your lending process digitalization.
The 5G IoT reaches new dimensions in all aspects where 5G connects more IoT devices at higher speeds and makes things slow things non-existent.
Dive deep into your imagination and seek a world where smart homes can unlock doors just by scanning your face, automatically adjust lighting and temperature, a world where chronic diseases are managed 24-7 and where accidents are a thing of the past. You can imagine that the fifth generation of wireless technology promises more than just a fast network.
It will not only help you redefine the network but also establish a new global wireless standard for speed. A 5G network builds a bridge to the future. This technology is not just a new generation of wireless technology, it is a 5G foundation to release the full potential of IoT thus revolutionizing technological growth. We are well aware about IoT and its working.
IoT is described as an ecosystem of interrelated computer devices, digital machines, and objects that have the ability to communicate and transfer data to each other in real-time, with minimum human intervention.
Major components of IoT include – devices, connectivity, data processing and user interface. Since IoT is already in the blooming stage, with the help of 5G (fifth generation), it has the potential to reach a whole new level. 5G and IoT technology together have a wide spectrum that increases the overall bandwidth and allows a massive amount of IoT devices to connect.
IoT and 5G have given rise to the mobile ecosystem by introducing a powerful combination of extraordinary speed, expanded bandwidth, low latency, and increased power efficiency that will be connecting billions of networks in the coming five years and is changing our world. Let’s look into some numbers to show you what 5G enabled IoT is capable of.
Ericsson’s latest Mobility Report says that the number of 5G smartphone subscriptions worldwide will rise to 600 million by the end of this year, almost tripling from the 2020 total. By 2022, 5G subscriptions will cross the one-billion mark.
Internet of Things (IoT) will connect more than 50 billion devices by 2030.
5G will be 10 times faster than current LTE networks. This increase in speed will allow IoT devices to communicate and share data faster than ever.
In 2030, the forecasted total number of 5G internet of things (IoT) units sold, business to business, is 44.8 million. Of these, almost half are expected to come from industry 4.0 applications, also known as smart factories. The second largest share of forecasted sales in 5G IoT units, is use cases in smart cities, with 8.4 million units.
Connected cars is projected to become the largest segment of the global 5G Internet of Things (IoT) endpoint market, with an installed base market share of 39 percent by 2023, the equivalent to 19 million endpoints. The overall 5G IoT endpoint installed base is forecast to grow from 3.5 million in 2020 to around 49 million in 2023 worldwide.
Due to the increase in 5G users, the industry anticipated to benefit the most economically is information and communications with an estimated $251 billion contribution to the U.S. GDP between 2021 and 2025. Real estate and business services industries are expected to contribute $190 billion and $187 billion, respectively, in the next five years.
Now that we are aware about what IoT in 5G technologies can pull off. Let us look into the advantages IoT and 5G bring to the table in detail.
What Are The Advantages Of 5G And IoT Tech?
1. Greater speed in transmissions
Speed in transmissions can reach 15 to 20 Gbps. With the help of the new found speed we can access data, files, programs etc on remote applications. By intensifying the usage of the cloud and making all devices (mobile phones, computers, etc.) depend less on the internal memory of the device, it won’t be necessary to install numerous processors on a device because computing can be done on the Cloud.
2. Increased number of devices connected
5G impact on IoT is clearly the increased number of devices that can be connected to the network. All connected devices are able to communicate with each other in real-time and exchange information.
You can imagine that when we talk about a smart home, hundreds of devices will be connected. If you think of an industrial plant, we are talking about thousands of connected devices. Such a great number of connected devices will allow concepts like building a smart city possible.
3. Lower latency
In simple words, latency is the time that passes between the order given to your smart device till the action occurs. Thanks to 5G this time will be ten times less than what it was in 4G.
For example: Due to lower latency the use of sensors can be increased in industrial plants. Be it control of machinery, control over logistics or remote transport all is now possible. Thanks to lower latency, which has led healthcare professionals to intervene in surgical operations from remote areas with the help of precision instrumentation that can be managed remotely.
4. Network slicing
5G implements virtual networks and creates subnets such that the network connection is adjusted as per the specific requirements. By creating subnetworks, some specific characteristics are given to a part of the network. The programmable network will prioritize connections, in case of emergencies by allocating different latencies in the connection.
You are now familiar with the advancements and advantages that applications of IoT in 5G can offer. So, let’s discuss how this wave of new technology is coming up with an endless number of use cases.
5G IoT Technology Use Cases
1. Smart traffic mobility
A world where accidents are minimal, would be a great world to live in. 5G IoT applications can enable the sharing of real-time information about traffic and road conditions among cars and other road users. Such smart mobility and driver assistance services require 5G communication devices in vehicles, with pedestrians, etc and roadside sensors infrastructure.
By collecting and analysing real-time traffic data from the roadside infrastructure and the vehicles on the road, such Intelligent Transportation Systems would be able to timely warn drivers about hazardous road conditions, traffic blocks and safety compromising situations. As a result road safety and traffic efficiency will increase.
2. Smart grid automation
Demand for electricity is increasing as we speak. Virtual power plants and smart grids are the technological solutions for the same. 5G allows us to inculcate real-time management and automate the smart electricity grid. The maintenance can be optimized once we start detecting faults and providing solutions rapidly.
5G is being largely adopted because of the increased deployment rate and lower cost in comparison to wired alternatives. As a result, utility operators are progressively updating their grids with new sensors, control systems and integrating renewable energy resources.
3. Video surveillance
Another 5G based IoT application that is assumed to thrive is video surveillance. Due to the recent turn of events around the globe, the government is ready to invest in public surveillance and security systems. As of now, video surveillance systems rely on wired connectivity, but the adoption of wireless networks can result in fast set-ups and lower costs, boosting connectivity and performance as compared to the wired ones.
5G and IoT security solutions allow us to prevent the loss of critical assets.
According to marketsandmarkets, 5G IoT video surveillance cameras is expected to grow from USD 2.6 billion in 2021 to USD 40.2 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 73.0% during the forecast period.
With the help of 5G we can securely and consistently monitor facility conditions from any location
Quick action can be taken on important security alerts that are notified on mobile devices
4. Smart city
The European Commission defines a smart city as “a place where traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital and telecommunication technologies for the benefit of its inhabitants and business”.
Smart cities use the5G and IoT devices to collect real-time data to understand demand patterns and respond with faster and lower-cost solutions. You can also call it a digital city whose ecosystem is designed to run by connecting several dedicated networks of mobile devices, sensors, connected cars, home appliances, communication gateways and data centers.
We already know that more than 50 billion devices will be connected to IoT by 2030. 5G is expected to unlock the potential of IoT and be a driving force for the smart city by addressing and overcoming all connectivity issues.
Final Say
Each year technology is innovating itself with new discoveries and ideas. IoT – the concept which did not even exist a decade ago has today not just gotten mainstream but has also marked a presence, across industries, across the globe. Looking at the above emerging technology of 5G and IoT and it’s numerous use cases now is the time to dive deep into mobile IoT app solutions and contact an IoT application development company.
For that you need to find a trustworthy and reliable IoT app development company in USA or other countries where you belong to partner with. A company that would help you expand your decentralized journey. Here comes Anteelo to help you out by providing top-notch solutions for your business needs. For any queries you can contact us through the link provided.
IoT currently is in its golden age, transforming various industries by storing and processing data in a distributed manner and making enhanced productivity.
IoT is a complex ecosystem of interconnected devices that can communicate with each other. These smart connected devices are able to gather, share, and analyze information and take actions accordingly.
Research shows that there will be 35 billion smart devices online by 2021 and this number will rise to 75 billion by 2025. So, it is safe to say that IoT is growing at an enormous rate and so are the use cases, trends and technologies surrounding it.
The emerging trends in IoT are majorly driven by technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, 5G and edge computing. Within this interconnected web of technological advances lies in the business value of IoT applications like smart wearables, smart homes and buildings, smart cities, autonomous cars, smart factories, location trackers, wireless sensors and much more. This level of connectivity helps consumers experience a comfortable secure household that they can control and monitor anytime. IoT also promotes cost and energy savings. From a business point of view, it helps make operation management more efficient, improves productivity of the resources and reduces human labour and above all it provides vast business opportunities.
Since we are well aware about what IoT is and how it works, let us jump straight to IoT statistics that you should not ignore!
Statistics You Need To Know
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global internet of things market size stood at USD 250.72 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 1,463.19 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 24.9% during the forecast period.
The Internet of Things (IoT) market in the U.S. is estimated at US $45.7 Billion in the year 2020. China, the world’s second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of US$169.1 Billion by the year 2027 trailing a CAGR of 29.9% over the analysis period 2020 to 2027.
The enthusiasm for IoT adoption is not only global, but also across all industries. Among the enterprise IoT decision makers Microsoft surveyed, 85% say they have at least one IoT project in either the learning, proof of concept, purchase, or use phase, with many reporting they have one or more projects currently in use. Adoption rates are similar across surveyed countries such as, US, UK, Germany, France, China, Japan and core industries like – manufacturing, retail/wholesale, transportation, government, and healthcare.
94% of businesses will use some form of IoT by the end of 2021. Among current IoT business adopters, 88% believe IoT is critical to their business success.
Now that you are aware of the facts and numbers regarding IoT, let us discuss emerging IoT trends, shall we? Past turn of events such as the unfolding of the 5G technology, latest developments in AI Blockchain, the on-going pandemic crisis will dictate the trend of IoT emerging technologies. But we cannot deny the fact that the future with IoT will be smart, secure and reliable,let’s understand how:
Top IoT Technology Trends 2021
1. IoT security
Till date, security is one of the major concerns when it comes to such an extensive level of connectivity. A security vendor has detected over 100 million attacks on IoT endpoints in the first half of 2019 alone, highlighting the continued threat to unsecured connected devices. As a result, security is an evolving IoT trend and many companies around the globe are developing IoT security solutions using different technologies.
2. IoT fueled with 5G technology
5G technology is not just a new generation of wireless technology, it is a foundation to release the full potential of IoT thus revolutionizing technological growth. It is without a doubt the most important internet of things emerging technology since reliable connectivity will result in better performing IoT devices. Real time data processing, lower latency, network slicing, higher transmission speed and extensive coverage are a few things that 5G brings on the table.
3. Blockchain
Increased adoption of blockchain technology is one of the latest IoT trends.
Blockchain can ensure data protection in IoT devices. Blockchain allows successful interaction between multiple network nodes and ensures safe record keeping and that is why it is a great fit for IoT applications since they are also distributed by nature.
4. IoT enabled AI applications
Two very different technologies such as the internet of things and artificial intelligence can together provide commercial solutions. AI algorithms now need very less data in order to deliver good and effective results. In industries, these two technologies can help automate many processes and reduce downtime, reduce operating costs, increase efficiency and enable predictive maintenance.
5. Digital twins
The digital twin technology trend came into limelight in 2020. A digital twin is a virtual representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical object or process. A digital twin can be used for multiple things such as monitoring, diagnosing, optimizing and controlling asset performance and utilization. From US $3.8 billion in 2019, the projected compound annual growth rate of the digital twins market will be US $35.8 billion by 2025.
6. Voice activated IoT devices
Amazon Echo, Siri, and Google Assistant have taken voice-based user interfaces to a different level. Voice interactions will now be used in other applications across various industries that will allow us to change settings, giving commands and receiving results from our smart devices. Banks and FinTech startups have been one of the earliest adopters of voice and speech recognition technology. Another impressive development in voice recognition technology is voice biometry. It allows organizations to create a digital profile of someone’s voice, by analyzing a series of specific characteristics such as tone, pitch, intensity, dynamics, dominant frequencies, etc. Companies are confident that this process will be more secure than the methods that are currently in place.
7. Smart cities
While witnessing the emerging technologies in IoT, one cannot ignore smart cities. Since the past five years, many governmental institutions have begun IoT projects that will impact the entire cities. With enormous amounts of data, the government will be able to implement various intelligent solutions for multiple issues like traffic congestion, citizen safety, energy utilisation, sustainable development, etc.
For example: In order to improve urban planning, transportation and public safety, Singapore collects, analyzes and shares data from connected sensors.
Business owners, entrepreneurs and governments are using IoT in order to increase work efficiency, save money, and to create a better user experience. While top IoT technologies are still in their early stage of development in many applications but their overall impact on the top industries is tremendous. Let us look into some applications in IoT devices for specific industries.
The Emerging Industry Wise IoT Applications
1. Agriculture
Did you know that the world population will reach gnarly 10 billion in 2025 and global food demand will witness a 70% increase? We do have a simple solution – smart agriculture (IoT agriculture). With the help of IoT sensors, farmers can make more informed decisions. This will help them achieve higher and better quality crop yield. It will also reduce costs by reducing the use of resources such as pesticides, water, and electricity.
2. Transportation
In 2021, the upcoming cars will be smart cars, which means they will be connected to the internet. These cars will ensure better safety not only for its drivers but also for other vehicles on the road. They will also be capable of software updates and lower emissions. Right now we do have e-scooters, bicycles and skateboards but with IoT evolving companies will be able to reduce their operational costs and deliver a better experience to the drivers and passengers of the vehicle.
3. Healthcare
Due to the recent turn of events, the healthcare sector has experienced a boom of IoT innovation. During the Covid-19 crisis, demand for IoT health applications like telehealth, digital diagnostics, remote monitoring, etc have skyrocketed, thus enabling real-time tracking and alerting the patient’s health IoT has improved the patient engagement and satisfaction with doctors by making interactions and procedures easier and more efficient.
4. Consumer electronics
IoT can enhance user experience and customer satisfaction simultaneously by providing convenience in people’s everyday lives. IoT helps in collecting consumer’s data efficiently and allows the producers to analyze and optimize the usage of their devices or applications.
For example: Due to the on-going pandemic wearable health monitoring devices will become a way of life.
Conclusion
IoT solutions are growing worldwide and the future trends of IoT will play a significant role in the near future. Major technologies such as blockchain, AI, 5G, cloud computing, and so on, are going to play a very crucial role in the advancement of global connectivity and the internet of things. IoT is taking over all aspects of our lives so, if you have an out of the box idea, now is the time to get in touch with an IoT application development company. We are one of the top IoT app development company in USA that creates applications which operate using sensors and deliver outstanding results.
Without adequate security, all connected devices provide a direct gateway into our personal & professional networks. Is it possible to avoid theft of data?
Considering the pace we are all moving at, companies are continually striving to make everything connected virtually. Devices connected to IoT can ‘communicate’ with each other be it tech gadgets, smart phones, smart home equipment and machines, etc. But, without adequate security, these connected devices provide a direct gateway into our personal, corporate, and governmental networks where confidential data can be either stolen or destroyed.
Now that IoT has become a complete game-changer, cybersecurity is more relevant than ever and challenging at the same time. The question still remains, are we ready for such an increased level of connectivity? What are the IoT security risks?
Before we dive into the glaring security issues, let’s look at some IoT market statistics, shall we?
Essential Internet Of Things Statistics To Keep You Up to Speed
Overview of the IoT market
1. The global market for the Internet of things (IoT) reached $100 billion in revenue for the first time in 2017, and forecasts suggest that this figure will grow to around $1.6 trillion by 2025.
2. The total number of connected devices to IoT is projected to reach to 30.9 billion worldwide by 2025. Do note that this number includes active nodes/devices or gateways that concentrate the end-sensors, rather than consumer devices such as computers and cell phones.
3. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the IoT adoption rate has increased, especially in the IoT in healthcare setup.
According to Microsoft’s 2020 IoT signals report, one-in-three decision-makers plan to up their IoT investments while 41% say their existing investments will remain the same.
Statistics about IoT security threats
1. SonicWall, which blocks an average of 26 million malware attacks globally each day, recorded 40% rise in malware attacks during the third quarter of 2020 as compared to 151.9 million ransomware attacks globally through the first three quarters of 2019, marking 15% and 5% year-over-year declines, respectively. The report clearly indicates how IoT cyber security is compromised.
2. According to the 2020 Unit 42 IoT threat report, 98% of all IoT device traffic is unencrypted, exposing personal and confidential data on the network. This is one huge example of IoT cyber risk.
3. The same report also points out that 57% of IoT devices are vulnerable to medium- or high-severity attacks. Also, 41% of attacks exploit device vulnerabilities that again shows IoT security challenges.
Now that you are up to date with all the data that revolves around security aspects in IoT, let’s discuss the challenges of securing IoT devices.
Internet Of Things Security Vulnerabilities And Challenges
1. Insufficient testing and updating
The major issue that comes with companies while developing IoT devices is that no one takes care of the security issue unless some major problem hits. Once IoT manufacturers launch a device they ensure that it is secure but over time it becomes prone to hackers and other security issues due to the lack of constant testing and updating. Hence, opening the door to IoT security challenges.
2. Lack of compliance on the part of IoT manufacturers
Let me explain this with examples you see in your day to day life. If you use fitness trackers, you must have noticed that bluetooth remains visible after the first pairing. A smart refrigerator can expose gmail credentials and a smart fingerprint padlock can be accessed with a Bluetooth key that has the same MAC address as the padlock device.
This can be labeled as one of the biggest IoT cyber security threats! Below are some security issues in IoT devices from manufacturers:
Weak and easily guessable passwords
Usage of old operating systems and software
Insecure and unprotected data storage and transfer
Technical issues in the hardware
3. Botnet attacks
Cyber security for IoT devices is very crucial since they are highly vulnerable to Malware attacks. They do not have the regular software security updates that a computer does. To perform a botnet attack, a hacker first creates an army of bots by infecting them with malware. Further, directs them to send thousands of requests per second to bring down the target.
Cyber security and IoT should go hand in hand in order to avoid a situation of attack. A botnet attack can easily cause a security threat for transportation systems, manufacturing plants, water treatment facilities and electrical grids, which can threaten big groups of people.
For example: A hacker can create spikes on the power grid by triggering a cooling and heating system at the same time. If this attack is planned on a big-scale it can create a nation-wide power outage.
4. Data security and privacy issues
Did you know that hackers did not spare a visionary like Elon Musk and a company like Apple which is known for its proud security claims. ? If such data comes in the wrong hands, it will not only lead to loss of money but also compromise intellectual property.
It was predicted that the Internet of Things will become a target-rich environment for hackers by 2020, attracting more than 25% of all cyberattacks. According to Microsoft, security aspects in IoT are lagging because 60% of employees use their personal devices for work purposes, and more than 80% admit to using unsanctioned web apps for work.
5. Financial crimes
Electronic payment companies that deploy Internet of Things may experience a wave of financial crimes. It will be a challenge to ensure the timely detection of fraud.
Also, due to compliance and operational issues, it will be difficult for all financial companies to launch new models of workflow. That is, unless they improve their project lifecycle and risk management strategies that include a rising threat of IoT security breaches.
6. Home invasions
You must be familiar with the concept of ‘smart homes’, which is a by-product of IoT. Cyber security for IoT becomes a huge issue when it comes to home automation. Due to unsafe devices and poor defense mechanisms, your IP addresses are trackable and it makes it easy for hackers to locate the address of the device.
7. Remote smart vehicle access
An IoT security challenge that is close to home invasion is the hijacking of your smart vehicles. This can lead to theft of personal data, vehicle theft, manipulation of safety-critical systems, etc.
Also, remote vehicle access can be a subject to ransomware, as a hacker may demand a hefty fee to unlock the car or to enable the engine. These malicious intrusions are obviously a huge threat to public safety as they can cause accidents.
Now that you have walked through the vulnerabilities and challenges that come with IoT, it’s time to talk about cyber security strategies that can help you overcome them.
How Can You Make IoT Connections Secure?
1. Secure the network
It is extremely important to secure the network that is a connecting bridge between the IoT devices and the back-end systems. This can be achieved by implementing security features like antivirus, anti-malware, firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems.
That being said, in order to sustain a smooth operation, there is a need for the IoT network to be protected and secured. You can effectively protect the network and secure it against attacks with the help of the above mentioned systems.
2. Authenticate the IoT devices
One of the cyber security solutions can be device authentication features for the IoT devices. Features like- multi-factor authentication and biometric systems ensure that nobody can access your devices. A potential attacker will need personal information to gain access to information and this is where you have leverage.
It is of great significance to secure your devices and reduce the probability of your data getting into the wrong hands. When you implement the suggested security options, your IoT devices become well secured against external breach of security. Thus, you will be able to enjoy the numerous benefits of having IoT devices at home, in the office, in your automobile, and anywhere you want.
3. Public key infrastructure strategy
A public key infrastructure (PKI) allows the users to engage in secure forms of communication, data exchange, and money exchange. This type of engagement is carried out using public and private cryptographic key pairs.
PKI ensures the encryption of data through two — asymmetric and symmetric encryption — processes. In asymmetric, we need two keys, one key is the public key and the other key is the private key. If something is encrypted with the public key, then decryption can only be done with the private key and vice-versa.
On the other hand for symmetric both the data encryption and decryption is done with the same key. The data encryption and decryption ensure that data privacy is maintained and the chances of data theft are reduced to the bare minimum.
4. Use IoT security analytics
You can drastically change the number of security issues you face by implementing security analytics. This involves collecting, correlating, and analyzing the data from multiple sources and can help IoT security providers by assisting in identification of potential threats.
Final Say
There is a lot of scope in IoT today and it is safe to say that the market will increase as per the projections, so now is the time to dive deep into the subject and understand it’s what’s and how’s. Also, with the discussion on IoT security challenges and solutions, we can conclude that securing applications is of paramount importance.
The security challenges must be managed, monitored and avoided by taking certain measures. You can go ahead and hire an IoT app development company that can help you overcome all your security risks, you can also choose the company based on the location, for example if you reside in the USA, then finding an iot app development company USA is better choice, as you will be able to know whether the company is genuine and knows its clients and customers choice.
