Imagine, if you can remotely monitor and control your garage door on your phone, thus ensuring your peace of mind or imagine that you can set your home thermostat 10 minutes before you get home or your washing machine can send you a text message, when your clothes are washed and ready to be placed in the dryer. Internet of Things applications have brought all this imagination to life.

The Internet of Things has become a buzzword in recent years. The term “Internet of Things” was first coined by Kevin Ashton in 1999 to describe a system in which a computer can collect data from the physical world through sensors without human intervention. Today, IoT is referred to in terms of providing Internet connectivity to physical devices that allow us to monitor and control them. This article focuses on how IoT can benefit home and personal use.

In the Internet of Things paradigm, devices with sensors are connected to the Internet. These devices don’t need to have built-in Wi-Fi support to connect to a wireless router as you would expect from a smartphone or tablet. They can use different protocols like Bluetooth LE, ZigBee, Z-wave or Wi-Fi to communicate with a gateway. The gateway can support these radio protocols to communicate with the device at one end and connect to a home Internet router at the other end. One such gateway or hub called “Revolv” was introduced at CES 2014. The use of low-power radio transceivers results in longer battery life for battery-powered devices such as smoke detectors and thermostats.

The data captured by these devices is uploaded to the cloud. The cloud hides Z-Wave, ZigBee, Wi-Fi and the other protocols from the user’s application. Any product that uses any of these protocols can be controlled on the same smartphone; thus, in turn, it makes heterogeneous home networks a reality. Each of these devices can be uniquely identified in the cloud. A smartphone app or web app can access the data on this device and send a command to any of these devices. Household appliances such as washing machine, refrigerator, microwave, air conditioner, etc. as well as simple devices like light bulbs can be monitored and controlled. This can result in better home and energy management.

This is just a glimpse of the Internet of Things in the field of personal and home use. IoT products can be used to create a home monitoring system for children and the elderly. The doctor can monitor patients at home, which reduces hospitalization costs. There are endless possible applications of IoT that can improve our lives and help us manage ourselves and our homes more effectively.