What Is IoT? The Internet of things, or IoT is a system that is actually interconnected with computing devices, mechanical and digital machines,objects, animals or people that are delivered with Unique Identifiers(UIDS). It has the ability to transfer data over a network without the requirement of the interaction between human to human or human to computer.
If we describe the actual definition of the IoT in an elaborated way, We can say, A thing in the internet of things may be a person with a heart monitor plant, or it can be suggested as a farm animal with a biochip transponder, or also can be an automobile that actually has built-in sensors to beware the driver when the pressure is low or any other authentic or artificial object that can be transferred over a network.
IoT is used by several various organizations for better understanding of the customers,on the account of aggravating efficient customer service, improve decision making and increase the value of the business.
How IoT works?
An IoT ecosystem follows the enabled smart devices with embedded systems, such as processors, sensors and communication hardware, to collect, send and act on data that are obtained from their environment. IoT devices share the sensor data whatever they have collected to connect an IoT Gateway or other edge device where data is either sent to the cloud to be analyzed or analyzed locally. Sometimes these devices act as a communication system with other related devices and works on the information they get from one another. Most of the works are successfully accomplished by the devices without human interference although human beings intervene or interact with the devices for instance, by setting them or giving them instructions or access the data.
Wi-Fi: Wi-Fi or Wireless Fidelity is regarded as the most popular IoT communication protocol for wireless local area network that utilizes the IEEE 802.11 standard through 2.4 GHz UHF and 5 GHz ISM frequencies. The devices belonging to the range of about 20–40 meters from the source are suitable for the internet access provided by Wi-Fi. It has a maximum 600 Mbps data rate, depending on channel frequency used and the number of antennas. The most commonly used wifi modules for various applications are ESP32 and ESP8266 and various projects are based on ESP32 and ESP8266 by following the link.
Wi-Fi may not be the best applicable choice for all types of IoT applications but it is suitable for applications like Home Automation as the cost of the device or infrastructure for Wi-Fi is low. On the other hand, the consumption rate is very high and the Wi-Fi range is quite moderate.
Many available development boards allow people to build IoT applications using Wi-Fi. The most famous and popular ones are the Raspberry Pi and Node MCU.
Bluetooth: Bluetooth is a technology used for sharing data wirelessly over a short distance. It actively gets the preference over IoT network protocols. It uses short-wavelength UHF radio waves of frequency ranging from 2.4 to 2.485 GHz in the ISM band. There are 3 different versions of Bluetooth Technology based on its applications:
● Bluetooth: The Bluetooth which is used on the account of communication between two devices through wireless technology has many applications in IoT /M2M devices nowadays. It operates at 2.4GHz ISM band and the data is split in packets before sending and then is shared using any one of the designated 79 channels operating at 1 MHz of bandwidth.
● BLE (Bluetooth 4.0, Bluetooth Low Energy) It is the version of Bluetooth with only one difference of consuming low power than Bluetooth and deals with the product of low cost and it is more durable and long-lasting than Bluetooth.
● IBeacon: It is actually the simplified version based on Bluetooth Technology to communicate or share data wirelessly by Apple. Bluetooth 4.0 transmits an ID called UUID for each user; it is generally applicable for iPhone users.
RFID: RFID or Radio Frequency Identification is a technology that actually covers the electromagnetic field for the identification of objects or tags containing some stored information. The range of RFID varies from minimum level to maximum level ranging from 10 cm to 200m. This is the long difference and entitled as short-range distance and long-range distance. The huge difference is not only comprised in case of the distance but also it belongs to the frequency also that starts from KHz and ranges till GHz and it can be mentioned as frequency ranges from Low frequency (LF) to Microwave depending upon the application and distance of communication.
RFID has RC522 Arduino & Raspberry Pi compatible modules that can be used to build an IOT based RFID application or application prototypes like attendance systems.
NFC: NFC or Near Field Communication is a protocol that is usually used to enable simple and safe two-way interactions between electronic devices. It actually follows mostly smartphone-based applications like allowing contactless payment transactions, accessing digital content and connecting various electronic devices.
It operates at a frequency of 13.56MHz in the ISM band and the maximum distance range is about 10cm with a data rate of 100–420kbps. The card swiping payment transaction can easily be replaced by it & the transaction process can be occurred by wireless payment like magic.
We can experience many real-time products and various modules that follow the NFC protocol.
Like the Seeed Studio NFC shield, DFRobot NFC module, Grove NFC, and all 3 of them are Arduino and Raspberry Pi compatible. For real-time products, NFC has CLRC663 plus, MFRC630, NTAG I2C plus products.
