We now have a fair idea about the most important areas related to the Internet of Things.
One thing that all IoT devices have in common is their connectivity—equipped with an internet connection, they can send and receive information, sense their surroundings, collect data, and control physical actuators. To be available over the internet, these devices need to have unique identifiers, usually in the form of their IP addresses.
You learned that IoT is being used in smart homes in the form of connected devices (for example, smart fridges and smart heating systems). This area has the most possibilities for your own experiments using an Arduino, sensors, and actuators.
We also had a look at two other areas where IoT is being used that gain a lot of traction: smart cars and industrial IoT. Smart cars will take over our streets and (at least partly) replace regular cars. The industrial IoT will help to automate factories around the world, improve efficiency, and minimize the need for manual maintenance.
You learned how a prototype differs from a product and that building quick-and-dirty experiments is often the fastest way to validate your ideas.
You also got a glimpse of voice control and learned that technologies such as Siri and Cortana can be used in physical prototypes as well.
While many of the use cases of IoT are in the commercial space, there is also a lot of room to create prototypes for the greater good using IoT development boards as you learned in the section about the Guardian, a device to help in stopping illegal deforestation.
In Chapter 2, Basic Architecture of an IoT Prototype, you will learn more about the IoT ecosystem—microcontrollers, protocols, apps, and libraries.
