ToP 5 IoT Trends (Internet of Things Trends)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer a new technology, but it continues to be a dynamic one. IoT trends to drive innovations for business by Making New applications for the IoT are being discovered every month, and the reach of the technology is also still expanding rapidly.
Ericsson predicts, in fact, that by the end of 2022 there will be around 29 billion of these devices connected to the internet globally.
This means that 2022 is likely to be a big year for the IoT, bringing new applications and expanded capabilities across a wide range of economic sectors. Some of these applications have been in the pipeline for a long time, and we’ve covered them in our introduction to the IoT. Others are more novel. All are important.
1. New Advances in IoT Healthcare
2021 was, pretty clearly, a bad year for global health. However, when the history books come to be written, it might turn out to also have been a good year for the healthcare industry. That’s because the pandemic appears to have spurred the development and application of new technologies in the sector, the IoT included.
IoT networks have been used in many new ways over the past two years. For those not working in the healthcare sector, the most familiar might be the way that smartphones have been turned into IoT devices used to monitor social distancing.
In hospitals, however, the range of applications for IoT devices is now mind-boggling – specialized medical equipment, including blood pressure and heart rate monitors, insulin pumps, futuristic wheelchairs, defibrillators, and oxygen pumps are all frequently connected now, allowing them to collect data to help doctors understand conditions and patient lifestyles better (in real-time), as well as work autonomously to improve user quality-of-life.
2. The Environmental Impact of IoT
A second major trend for 2022 will be a closer focus on the environmental impact of the IoT. Specifically, the scale at which IoT networks are now deployed means that improving their energy efficiency is a central element in making technology greener.
For the IoT itself, this could be an opportunity. We’ve previously reported on the ways that the IoT can reduce the environmental impact of companies. This type of use of the IoT is expected to explode in popularity as more companies come under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint.
In turn, this will likely give rise to a new generation of “green” IoT companies – those that not only help others to improve their ecological credentials but also track their own. Tools like Carbon Collective’s climate index allow investors to look up the environmental impact of their decisions, and the rising popularity of such tools is likely to drive IoT companies to ever greater scrutiny of their own environmental footprint.
3. Improving Security
The security of the IoT has been a concern since the concept was first developed, and even after a decade of real-world applications the industry still struggles to reassure companies that IoT networks are safe.
This is perhaps the most urgent issue facing the industry, and it’s one that is only going to draw more focus in the next few years. Security researchers at Kaspersky say there were 1.5 billion attacks against IoT devices during the first half of 2021 and expect many more than that in 2022. In fact, if no action is taken, the IoT may become a victim of its own success – as more devices are connected, they will become more vulnerable.
Up until now, IoT device manufacturers have often prioritized connectivity over security, but that is slowly changing. The use of default passwords on IoT devices is decreasing, with more networks able and willing to use encrypted connections to keep data secure in transit. The biggest shift, however, is that companies themselves are more aware than ever of the importance of data security and are putting group pressure on IoT device manufacturers to improve this aspect of their devices.
Improving security is one of the most demanding IoT trends in future.
4. Edge IoT
Edge computing has been one of the most important IoT trends in technology in the past five years. What’s often forgotten about, however, is that “the edge” is intimately related to the IoT. Edge paradigms were created, in large part, in order to manage the explosion in the number of IoT devices and the simultaneous rise in demand for computational resources.
Just as web development is now taking advantage of the IoT to deliver hyper-personalized shopping experiences, edge computing will allow more organizations than ever before to connect directly to their users and customers and to manage IoT devices in real-time.
A key driver here is the increasing amount of computer power becoming deliverable in ever smaller and more power-efficient devices, thanks to more efficient battery and user interface designs. In 2022, as more organizations continue to look towards hybrid cloud ecosystems to deliver IoT services to their customers, edge computing will become an increasingly important part of the solution when there’s a requirement to deliver fast, secure insights.
See also: What is Edge computing? Is it essential for the IoT ?
5. IoT Resilience
Finally, the IoT industry will also change in response to the biggest lessons of 2021. One of these was the importance of improving resilience in our social, political, and technological networks.
Resilience is emerging as the watchword of 2022 in many industries, and the IoT is no exception. Today, resilience encompasses more than just security. It now includes provisions such as ensuring a business has the right skills for coping with widespread change such as the shift to home and remote work we saw in 2020 and 2021, as well as ensuring it doesn’t lose out due to the activity of competitors or markets.
Critical sectors of the economy, such as the food industry, will benefit from the extra resilience that the IoT can afford them, and those working in the IoT industry are likely to see more and more clients listing resilience as a key concern in IoT implementations.
The Future
2022 is, of course, just the beginning of the story of the IoT. The technology is likely to be with us for many decades to come, and will increasingly fuse with both web design and networking more generally. But right now, it’s a dynamic technology that is undergoing rapid transformations.
Let us know what you know more about IoT trends in 2022 in the comment section below.
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ABOUT AUTHOR
Brian Skewes is a technologist into deconstruction. Over two decades of self-employment, he has accumulated a wealth of inadvertent real-world lessons related to building, running, and preserving a small company.
