When most people generally think about using the internet, they think about computers and their phones. But actually, these aren’t the only devices that use the internet anymore. It’s common now for many households to have many internet connected devices such as televisions, gaming consoles, security alarms, security cameras, alarm clocks, lights, watches, refrigerators, microwaves and washing machines. Essentially having all these connected devices has caused people to start to talk about the internet of things.
At the moment, not every household has every appliance connected to the internet, but over the next decade, internet connected items will be even more common. Internet connected devices are very helpful to humans because they can help to automate and assist with many parts of an individual’s daily life.
A person with a fully internet connected home could have quite a bit of their day planned by the various machines they own.
One could wake up in the morning, have their alarm tell them the weather, the daily news and check their calendar for appointments that day. While having breakfast, the refrigerator notices that there won’t be enough milk in two day’s time and orders a new bottle online so there will always be some available to drink in the morning. Then as a person is leaving their home and going to work, their car can check the daily traffic report and adjust the journey. Even better, on days when traffic is significantly heavy, a smart alarm clock could see that traffic is heavy and wake up someone a little earlier so they won’t be late to work, letting them know what’s going on so they won’t be late. It’s events like these that seem to be where the world of the internet is heading at the moment and much of it can be quite handy.
But having all these interconnected devices in your home though does take up a lot of your internet data. Actually a major user of the NBN network in the future is likely to be these interconnected machines talking to one another about the local traffic and the many grocery orders they’ll be making.
There are some risks of course when it comes to the future of the internet. The emergence of any type of artificial intelligence in the future could impact on some lower skill jobs that could be replaced by machines. There’s also the question of security and how to keep all of these connected devices secure. But as with all emerging technologies, there’s always obstacles to overcome.
At the moment we are really at the beginning of the emergence of the technology inside the connected home. But even now there are some great devices on the market which can help to improve the efficiency of one’s daily life. Large company’s like Google with their Google Home and Amazon with their Alexa products are leading the charge in this area. With more and more connected devices and apps being released every year and many companies developing products in this area, the future of the connected home is rapidly approaching.