So I am unfortunately now job hunting with the New Year. I am lucky enough to already have an interview coming up Monday. I spoke to the HR director today and she used IOT a few times so I googled it.
I kind of get the concept but what would IOT mean to a smallish electronics manufacturing company.
Note: I’m a Programmer/Analyst
An electronics manufacturing company would want their products to be wifi-enabled or bluetooth-enabled and ready to take commands remotely. The trick for any manufacturer is choosing what command platform(s) to support.
They could well be making (or looking at making) the hardware for internet-connected home or industrial devices. Smart thermostats, smart TVs, all of the doohickeys that you can attach to your appliances so that Alexa can turn on the lights in your living room, are all IoT.
I (also a programmer/analyst) smacked face-first into this term when I was sent against my will to a conference a while back. The idea I get from IOT is that you have tons of devices everywhere connected wirelessly feeding data back to big data processing centers which are doing Machine Learning™ on them - which is to say they’re getting all Big Data about it. Perhaps because this was a business/manager focused conference there was a heavy focus on rather creepy levels of data acquisition on customers and non-customers alike, alongside more pedestrian uses like tracking and storing inventory movement data to be used in predictive algorithms to tell you when to buy more stock.
As for how it would relate to a smallish electronics manufacturing company, it would matter a whole lot if the the electronics you were manufacturing had to do with data acquisition or processing, because the theory would be that the amount and type of data you’d be dealing with would be increasing a lot in the near future. If that’s not you, though, I’m not sure it would make any difference to you as a business.
As already answered, it’s anything that can connect to the internet or other devices remotely, including things you might not think need to be connected. My camera can log onto my wifi network to download pictures. Refrigerators can track what’s in them and add items to your shopping list. Big data collection and machine learning can be a part of it, but it’s not true for all, or even most, IoT devices.
If you want to appear familiar with it in an interview, I recommend focusing on the challenges around it. Platform support mentioned by ZipperJJ is one. Another big topic is security. Security of these devices has often been an afterthought, and the risks of this will be huge as the devices become ubiquitous.
Just to expand on this:
Thank you all. I think for where I am interviewing it will be about lights and thermostats mostly.
TroutMan, the security aspect is a great talking point. Thank you.
I have several very old, definitely pre-IOT potholders here, that are starting to fall apart with age. It’s clearly time for me to get new potholders, as the ones I have are no way upgradeable. Should I be looking into IOT-enabled potholders? Why or why not? What advantages would they have for me?
(Note: I do very little cooking.)
Yeah, security is big. It’s why I do not have any IoT devices. I don’t want them used as a botnet. I stick with the old fashioned radio-powered key finders, even if they are more expensive.
I don’t know how to keep costs down and have real security. A default password is not okay.
Lots of people and companies want thermostats, etc., that can be controlled remotely. So, for example, some guy in the Head Office can fiddle with the climate controls in the remote facility from the comfort of his desk rather than sending a person there.
I’m a security guy, and, yes, security is a huge topic. IOT devices can be roped into botnets; they can provide a foothold into a network; they can expose sensitive internal controls to bad guys, etc. If you work in that space, please try to make my job easier! 
The IoT is also useful for creating botnets for DDoS and such.
Don’t worry, I’m on the business system side, not tech programming. I’m just trying to learn about the current tech buzzword that seemed important enough to them that an HR person used it.
My first thought wasn’t too wrong anyway. I heard IoT and figured it was input/output tech for things like lights, thermostats, garage door openers, etc.; which is fairly close to what IoT is.
I’ll give a serious answer to an amusing post, because I think it’s a useful way to think about how the IoT will develop.
As of today, there is no reason for an IoT potholder. Any IoT functionality is clearly unnecessary and frankly ridiculous. But that was true of many current IoT devices 15 years ago - the utility of having your refrigerator connected to the internet would have been a joke (and still is for many people). Ten years from now, it will be as standard on refrigerators as temperature control.
So brainstorming about an IoT potholder…what if it recorded the time I put a dish in the oven and automatically set a timer for me? What if it detected the temperature of the pan, calculated the cooling rate, and notified me when the cake was cool enough to turn out? These are [del]probably[/del] stupid ideas, but my point is that there will be plenty of IoT devices in the future that we aren’t imagining now.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is basically a catchphrase for Internet connected and accessible devices, e.g. those that connect to and be accessed by the Internet by TCP/IP, WiFi, WiMAX, WPAN, or other proprietary protocols. Given the increased interest and even reliance on internet accessibility to program and control appliances and devices, there is considerable interest in it for all manufacturers of electronic devices and appliances. Two of the major challenges with IoT-enabled devices are power management and security, and both are often overlooked in consumer devices to the peril of users. A working knowledge of either or both areas should be of interest to anyone designing or doing embedded programming for these devices.
Obviously anything that connects wirelessly is probably using battery power both for the wireless connection and it’s own internal functions, and has to manage power resources as not to burn through the battery between charging intervals. This means using lower power protocol options rather than continuous communication and power management to maximize life while maintaining functionality.
The other (which I see on review has already been touched on by TroutMan) is that these communication protocols are not inherently secure, and so they can be potentially attacked via multiple routes, both by intercepting the wireless connnection stream or through the Internet (spoofing the IP or credentials of the legitimate user). IoT devices were originally novelties and so security was not a large concern, but now that wireless access is built into many larger systems such as vehicles or home control and communication systems, it is possible to access a larger system via a peripheral device and access other parts of the system that were never intended to be accessed by an outside user. It has already been shown that accessing the Bluetooth enabled enterainment system on certain vehicles can allow access to the engine control system and other operate-by-wire devices, and the problem will only get worse as automakers look to reduce the physical complexity of wiring and move to CAN bus systems (which also typically have little or no built-in security), potentially giving complete access over the vehicle to an unauthorized user.
Another problem that is often not considered is that manufacturers often want to graft wireless or attached Internet functionality onto an existing design (say, a refrigerator) without understanding that this requires an entirely new interface and perhaps additional communication or monitoring functions internal to the device as well as the Internet-facing interface. This can add considerable complexity to a seemingly simple system, particularly if the internal interfaces are not well documented. This can require essentially reverse engineering the existing system and result in unexpected performance or reliability problems. The ability to develop, flow, and document system requirements for even a ‘simple’ system is just as important as being able to hack some embedded C code to make a controller do a particular thing. There are a bunch of system engineering certifications offered by INCOSE and IEEE (although the latter seems to have eliminated some) which may make you more appealing to employers who understand the value of systems engineering, but realistically systems engineering is more tedious than hard, and if you pick a suitable method at the appropriate level of fidelity and use common sense in applying it you’ll do fine.
Good luck to you in your interview process and job hunt.
Stranger
I’m pretty sure the primary functionality of an IoT potholder would be to record what type of things you’re baking and to send that data back to a server that would use it to show you targeted advertising on the front of your fridge.
IoT is basically an entrepreneur’s dream in terms of the wealth of opportunities in consumer devices, especially since most people carry around a device (smartphone) which can be used to access these peripherals. This and the establishment of wireless standards are the enabling technologies for the dream of home automation going back to the ‘Fifties. Unfortunately, it also means that people can jump in and trying to make devices do things they absolutely shouldn’t do (you do not need an IoT-controlled showerhead), or interconnect devices without thinking about the potential for a malicious user to access and use IoT devices to malicious and vandalous purposes.
Stranger
In addition to practical appliances, there are also a lot of toys. There’s been some talk, for instance, of robot pets like Furbies which are connected to the Internet. If they’re hacked, an attacker could use the built-in microphone to listen in on whatever your kid is saying to the toy, or to anything else within range of it to be heard.
Related buzzword: IIoT - Industrial Internet of Things. Also possible to come up in discussions of newish tech.
I’ve reviewed a few books on IoT security. Be afraid, be very afraid.
While there are some good practices around security, many IoT devices will be sold on price, and there will be incentives for low cost manufacturers to cut corners, especially since most consumers are not going to be able to evaluate security. Vint Cerf noted that they are made using out of date open source code full of security holes. Your PC downloads patches all the time from Microsoft or Apple. Will your light bulb? Will the manufacturer of your cheap thermostat be willing to maintain the infrastructure to download patches over the next ten years? Unlikely.
And how do you enforce security for the patch downloads? Look at the crappy passwords people use already. What are the ones for IoT devices going to look like? Some have been found to have root passwords hardwired in.
There are three modules of IoT - the device itself, the communications infrastructure, and the backend where data is collected and where the processing is done to tell you that you need to get more milk. The backend is safest except the issue today is who owns your data? Do you have to opt out of sending your refrigerator habits to the maker of the fridge?
I’ve seen a proposal for a smart lighting system that know when to turn lights on and off depending on your habits. That system knows when you go to bed. Combine that data with a FitBit and the data warehouses of the future will know if you have sex with the lights on or off.
Welcome to tomorrow!
You think that’s bad? Hackable IoT sex toys.
