How Firgelli Automations is developing IoT ready motion products
The Internet of Things (IoT) is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing internet infrastructure. Now that may sound like a mouth-full but what does this really mean? What it comes down to is in the not-to-distant future, the world, and every electronic device that requires battery power or plugs into a wall will all be connected together. You may be wondering ‘what’s so great about that? What’s the point? If you’re old enough to remember 30 years ago when people thought it was asinine to have a personal computer, or that the “internet” was just going to be another fad. Firgelli Automations is here to tell you the IoT will be bigger than the internet itself. Time Magazine in 2013 published a front page article titled “The internet is Dead, IoT is next”. Well they are somewhat correct, in fact today 99% of electronic devices are not interconnected. Here lies the growth sector.
So what really is the IoT?.
Picture this: every electronic device you have today is all connected to a single mainframe, on a cloud server of sorts and ran by an app on your phone which will no doubt be on your wrist in 10-20yrs time. Your Fridge sends you a message to say that your low on milk so better get some on your way home, or your coffee machine has ran our of coffee better get some more too. Or better yet your Washing machine sprang a water leak during a cycle and so it has decided to switch off the main water line and a automatically setup an appointment with a plumber to come and fix it tomorrow at 3pm and even though you will be at work your home robot will be there to open the door and watch the plumber do his work whilst recording the whole thing which will be viewed live by your local home security company in case he decides to snoop around or steal your stuff.
These sort of simple everyday boring servicing tasks can now be done by the electronic devices we already own and that frees up our time to other more important things. And by the way your home management App will also be able to pre order at the grocery store these essential items and make decisions about what other groceries you may want to grab at the same time, and send that shopping list to the local Grocery store drive through location too.
This may all seem a little far fetch but the reality is all this technology exists today. For example a Robot in your home is nothing more than a PC with moving parts, the sort of products Firgelli already produces today. Sensor and video technology is already at the level it needs to be to make their way around your home and complete face recognition tasks to know its the plumber at the front door thats here to fix the water leak, or the sensor in your fridge that measures the weight of the milk carton to know its down to 10%. The communications technology is already their too with the use of RFID tags that will be cheap enough to be placed into every item over $5 and the mainframe in your home that reads all these sensor inputs are nothing more than powerful computers that link everything together and send that data to whoever needs to know.
Sound far fetched? hardly, in fact this level of interconnectivity is almost there, Blackberry have already began the framework to be able to communicate with such devices, and at Firgelli we are developing the next level of motion control devices to to able to do the moving functions of Robots, valves, locks, openers etc. Actuators are used in just about any application that require you to move, open, close or physically manipulate something and even though an Actuator will be part of a much larger system it will still require the connectivity capability such that it too can communicate if its been over loaded, getting to hot better yet requires maintenance soon. Regardless of its level of communication needs Firgelli is developing the products to enable all this work
IoT is expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine to machine communications and covers a variety of protocols, domains, and applications. The interconnection of these embedded devices (including smart objects), is expected to usher in automation in nearly all fields, while also enabling advanced applications like a Smart Grid.
Things, in the IoT, can refer to a wide variety of devices such as heart monitoring implants, biochip transponders on farm animals, automobiles with built-in sensors, or field operation devices that assist fire-fighters in search and rescue. Current market examples include smart thermostat systems and washer/dryers that utilize wifi for remote monitoring.
Some predict there will be nearly 26 billion devices on the Internet of Things by 2020. ABI Research estimates that more than 30 billion devices will be wirelessly connected to the Internet of Things (Internet of Everything) by 2020. Per a recent survey and study done by Pew Research Internet Project, a large majority of the technology experts and engaged Internet users who responded—83 percent—agreed with the notion that the Internet/Cloud of Things, embedded and wearable computing (and the corresponding dynamic systems ) will have widespread and beneficial effects by 2025. It is, as such, clear that the IoT will consist of a very large number of devices being connected to the Internet.
