What is the history of IoT?

In a presentation to Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1999, Kevin Ashton, co-founder of the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), first referenced the internet of things. Ashton named his presentation “Internet of Things” to embrace the hip new trend of 1999: the internet, in order to bring radio frequency identification (RFID) to the attention of P&G’s senior management. When Things Start to Think, a book by MIT professor Neil Gershenfeld, was also published in 1999. It didn’t use the precise term, but it gave a clear picture of where the Internet of Things was going.

Wireless technologies, microelectromechanical systems (MEMSes), microservices, and the internet have all come together to form the Internet of Things.

The convergence has aided in the dismantling of silos between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT), allowing for the analysis of unstructured machine-generated data in order to drive improvements.
Despite the fact that Ashton was the first to describe the internet of things, the concept of connected objects has been present since the 1970s, under the names embedded internet and pervasive computing.
In the early 1980s, a Coke machine at Carnegie Mellon University was the first internet appliance. Programmers might use the internet to check the state of the machine and see if there would be a cold drink waiting for them if they decided to visit it.

M2M communication

M2M communication, or machines connecting to each other over a network without human contact, gave rise to IoT. Connecting a gadget to the cloud, managing it, and collecting data is referred to as M2M.
IoT is a sensor network of billions of smart gadgets that connects people, systems, and other applications to collect and share data, taking M2M to the next level. M2M provides the connectivity that makes the Internet of Things possible.

SCADA

A category of software application programmes for process control that gathers data in real time from remote places to operate equipment and conditions, is a natural extension of the internet of things. Hardware and software components are included in SCADA systems. The hardware collects and feeds data onto a computer running SCADA software, where it is processed and displayed in real time. SCADA has evolved to the point that late-generation SCADA systems have evolved into first-generation IoT systems.

The IoT ecosystem, on the other hand, didn’t truly take off until the middle of 2010, when China’s government said that IoT would be a strategic priority in its five-year plan. The information on this page was last updated in August of 2021.