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How often do you forget your smartphones at home? Rare. Because they are the last things you would want to leave your home without. It hasn’t been so long that we have had access to the internet 24/7. And the connection of cell phones, laptops, tablets, and workstations to the Internet has been quite commonplace for a while now. But, who would have thought that the connection of other things over the Internet rather than these typical computational devices would be possible? Over a few decades ago, it might have been considered something near impossible. Thanks to the advancement in technology that is bringing evolution every other day. If I was in the 50 I would not have thought of my pen or my refrigerator or anything being ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’. Like, when the food stocks in my fridge go low, it could order on its own. Would sound really sceptical in the 50s, but as of now, it’s not even wonder anymore. So, basically, the connection of such things to the Internet is referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT).
Anything besides a typical computer connected to the Internet with the inclusion of computational intelligence to enhance the device’s functionality is termed as Internet of Things. The IoT devices do not necessarily have to bear a resemblance to a standard computing device. They are almost always designed for specific purposes rather than computations. They could compute the speed of a car but the computation is streamlined within the driving and the car. A pen could write and calculate the heartbeat rate of the pen holder but that’s for it. The pen could nowhere look like a standard computer but can be an IoT device. All it needs is a microcontroller as its processor that runs some kind of codes, sensors, and actuators.
The first IoT device is considered to be a toaster. Connected to the Internet via a TCP/IP protocol, it was quite an achievement in 1990. The term ‘Internet of Things was introduced in 1999 by Kevin Ashton. And in 2000, the world’s first Internet-enabled refrigerator was built by LG. Thereafter, there have been many commendable accomplishments with Google’s wearable smart devices, self-driving cars, to name a few. It is estimated that about 36 billion IoT devices will be produced by 2021, with a market value of $8.9 trillion by 2020!
Looking at the global growth, Nepal is lagging behind. But there are progress being made every other day. The Finance Minister of Nepal, Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada declared that Nrs 171.17 billion has been allocated for Education, Science and Technology for the fiscal year 2077/78 BS, which is good news and hopefully will be implemented as professed. And we see a huge potential for development in the sector of IoT.
Some of the possible reasons for the potentiality could be:
- Internet Access
Internet used to be available in devices almost a decade ago, with nearly 9% of the population having access as of 2011, that too with Ethernet cables. Now, with Wi-Fi easily available in major cities, people are having easier access to the Internet. It is quite affordable but there are arguments about data costs, which are not as low as they should have been compared to the developed countries. The data bandwidth is also high (not so high, but considered adequate as of now), which encourages people to work in the field of IoT and make more use of it. As per the Nepal Telecommunications Authority MIS Report of 2019, around 63% of the total population has internet access, so we see potential for IoT.
2. Computational Ability
No doubt, we have come a long way in revolutionizing the computational ability of a standard computer. The first electronic general-purpose digital computer, ENIAC, acronym for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, built-in 1946, had the ability to compute 5000 instructions per second. A general laptop today can carry out 18 billion instructions per second. Wow! In addition, with multi-tasking, parallelism, and multiprocessing, the general computer does wonders. It is evident that IoT devices are going to follow the trace.
3. Hardware Costs
Back in 1946, the building of ENIAC cost almost $500,000, whose equivalence as of 2019 would be almost $7.2 million! That’s quite an amount for a single computer! And it is obvious that it wouldn’t be so affordable as of now. But, with the passage of time and advancements in technology, the hardware costs have reduced to a level that general people can easily afford. Now, on average, a general laptop costs about $500 or Nrs 50,000 – 60,000. Well, the IoT devices would cost lesser, obviously.
With the usage of IoT devices being available, their potential use s are going to enhance human lives with positive changes in society. In Nepal, IoT has a good prospects, some of which could be:
- Smart Home
People have started using IoT for home automation for security purposes and the user will continue to grow. The sensors in the system help to detect unintended movements and inform the homeowners and local authorities.
2. Agriculture
Since our childhood, we have been studying that Nepal is an agricultural country. Smart farming with IoT enhances the monitoring and controlling of crops with the help of sensors. The temperature, humidity, and soil moisture amongst others are a few factors the sensors monitor. It has been started for mushroom farming in a few places and it should be encouraged to use in other sectors of farming too.
3. Smart City
The use of IoT to make a city ‘Smart’ has been encouraged by many public and private sectors in Nepal. For an instance, a Traffic surveillance system for recognizing license number plates to trace stolen vehicles could be one. Others could be waste management, traffic congestion problems, parking management, and so on.
4. Wearables
Smartwatches have started to be a commonly used device amongst Nepalese people, alongside fitness trackers. They should be encouraged more as they help to track our normal body condition and we do not necessarily have to go to a doctor to find out that we have normal blood pressure. Well, this makes us a little more dependent on technology and a little less dependent on another individual.
Like a coin with two sides, IoT also has its pros and cons. Since we become more technology-dependent, we tend to have social isolation (which is good as of now due to COVID-19), but in the long term, we all know that complete social isolation is not what we want. Moreover, power outages could also be problematic when we are device-dependent. There could be bugs giving misleading information and this defect in medical devices could lead to death too!
Privacy and security are also matters of concern. Since the data are collected and stored in clouds, databases can be breached as hackers are always trying to steal the data. When we use IoT devices, we are sharing our location data via GPS with the company of the devices. We are being tracked for every movement we make. Even the TV we watch, Netflix, and YouTube, track everything we watch and hence they know exactly what we want to watch and recommend accordingly. All these data are used by companies to market to you. All in all, IoT devices are beneficial but when your data have been stored somewhere in the clouds, and in the future, these data could be used against you. Despite the fact, that Nepal has a lot of potential in the field of IoT.