Category: IoT

With the global outreach IoT has recently seen, there has been seen a huge demand for IoT specialists by corporates everywhere.

Corporates, today, are anxious to tap the right candidates with the right skill set, to set things in motion the right way. They are now, no longer looking for simple software developers who specialize either in iOS or Android, they are looking at the bigger picture. They are looking for someone who can not just code, but do more innovative things.

They are looking for intuitive candidates with a knack of problem-solving skills, flowing in their veins. They are looking for someone who can identify and connect with the ever-changing landscapes of the digital arena.

Today’s IT ecosystem has completely changed and might be looking for you!

If you are looking forward to being a bigshot IoT developer, give this a read!

Understanding the basics

The first step of getting the much-needed head start in the IoT arena is knowing the basics well.

Every single piece of technology we see today is governed by a basis set of sensors. If you know your sensors well, voila! You are halfway there.

The Tesla you see running down the road, the automatic washer in your laundry room, everything is governed by a basic set of sensors. For your growth in this arena, it is essential that you understand these basic components well. These components are the ones that are going to define your journey here. Knowing what goes in the wireless communication systems well enough is a critical foundation to cover.

Knowledge about their basic mechanism and functioning, along with their build and architecture thus adds points to your skill set and make a whole lot of difference. The depth of understanding it requires forms an indispensable part of your future in IoT.

Realize it is the future!

IoT is not just another change made to the latest technology. It is not another software update. It is something bigger than that.

Remember how Apple created all the buzz with the notch display? It created a future right at that very moment. Well, IoT is here to do the same thing. This is why IoT should be a vision, it should be treated as our future.

With IoT, it is all about cost reduction, resource management, and efficiency. It is a technological ecosystem that you need to explore. Your ability to explore the field along with its never-ending boundaries is what should be your primary goal to learn what makes up IoT.

If you fail to realize the significance that IoT holds today and in the future, you are in for a brutal competition where you are bound to lose.

UI/UX Interface dynamics

Every IoT enthusiast should be able to tap the UI/UX world with ease.

Why?

It is the one thing that consumers really dig! The one thing any user first sees is the interface and if it is not right, your efforts do not really matter in the long run.

An interface is supposed to be effective and user-friendly. This is why as an IoT enthusiast, you need to ensure you are able to design a responsive and enigmatic web design that is bound to be a hit with the users. Your UX should be able to provide value that an end-user is looking forward to.

An in-depth knowledge of designing, UI, UX, and even photoshop is a must!

JavaScript and Python skills

With almost every IoT device programmed with JavaScript and Python today, it becomes a prerequisite to have an adequate skill set of both the programming platforms.

Both JavaScript and Python are advanced and effective, as far as programming languages are concerned and are considered to be the best among the different platforms available today. Both web-based languages are idealistic solutions to every problem, even if they are backend.

Having adequate knowledge of both Java and Python will provide you the much-needed head start you desire for an easy success in the field.

Focus your attention on mobile devices

Almost every innovation that technology makes today, makes its way through mobile devices. Part of the reason behind it? The rising power of smartphones all over the planet.

Smartphones, along with smartwatches are apparently said to be the next big thing that has changed human civilization. Our lives completely dependent on the same. Probably this is why as an IoT enthusiast you should never let mobile devices out of your focus.

Both smartphones and smartwatches have seen an exponential rise, as far as user functionality is concerned. Their graphs have only seen a rising curve!

Therefore, you need to focus your attention on building technology that is mobile device friendly at all times. Along with focussing on strong performance, you should also focus on less power consumption and efficient UX over the same. Mastering this arena will bring you the success you desire.

AI and Machine Learning

One of the major components that make IoT such a huge deal is the infusion of AI and machine learning.

Machine Learning helps IoT based devices put themselves as the ultimate, new age technological models. Nothing else can bring the edge to IoT based devices as AI and Machine Learning can. Both are responsible for putting the completeness into the IoT devices. Both are required for every single task, no matter how insignificant it might be. As a developer, special focus thus should be paid to leverage your skills in this direction.

Business-friendly skills

Why are business skills on this list?

Confused, right?

As a developer, why should you be concerned with business skills and gaining knowledge about the business management arena?

Because of one particular reason.

IoT, as a model, does come with a certain amount of mistakes. The problem seems to go down deep. IoT is all about collecting, storing and analyzing data streams from different smart devices. If you have no particular understanding of this data stream, how will everything make sense to you?

This is why data center management and other related skill sets should be known to you, so the project you are working on does not fail, under any given circumstances.

Team Efforts

Speaking of business and management skills, what should also be known to you is teamwork and team efforts. IoT is something that is supposed to work on as a team. If a team of developers is not strong enough to work with each other, the project is bound to fail.

Fundamentals of IoT team are – An Electrical engineer, an industrial designer, a mechanical engineer, a system designer, a back-end developer, a front-end developer, and among others, a project and a product manager.

The more you, as a team, know the importance of working together, the more your end result is going to be worth it. The more knowledge you, as a team, have, the better your resultant is going to be.

The success of an efficient IoT system depends on team effort, and if that is perfect, everything falls into place.

Data analytics

A key feature in the world of IoT – Big Data Analytics.

Data is the fuel on which any IoT system/project works. Every piece of data, every single information needs to collect from different complex sources and utilized to make the overall performance of the system better.

Developers thus, need to have a good enough insight to compile complex information together. This requires a thorough knowledge of data analytics, without which this function cannot be performed easily. With proper data analytics information, every complication can be turned in your favor.

Cloud computing

Cloud storage or cloud computing is the fundamental basis on which an IoT device runs and functions. Cloud has turned out to be an even huge deal, as far as IoT is concerned, then anyone could have comprehended in the past.

Developers who have the necessary skills in cloud computing, and how to turn it to your benefits in the field of IoT are the ones going big in the industry.

Not only does your experience of working on cloud helps, but also your experience of developing mobile apps, compatible with cloud computing! You can turn the world around if you master cloud computing along with the basics of IoT.

Conclusion

IoT is the biggest thing to have hit the mobile app development market in recent times. It has had an impact over efficiency and precision of apps along with their functionality and production. Ignoring IoT could be your biggest mistake as a mobile app development company.

IoT is here, and is here to stay

Enterprises battling inefficiency, poor customer insight, and inability to track money and make decisions have managed to find a solution in IoT apps.

IoT app development companies’ claims are high in this regard: the new interconnection of technology, IoT, is heralded as a next industry revolution by them-an entirely new paradigm with the capabilities to resolve the challenges faced by the modern enterprises.

From improving the efficiency level to providing accurate data to gain the insight, by enhancing capabilities to tracking the funds to enabling organizations to improve business decision-making, IoT apps capabilities are unchallenged at the moment. In fact, technologists associated with IoT app development are highly confident to expose more benefits of IoT apps for the enterprises in future.

Considering the industry’s confidence and the capabilities of the technology, it is not surprising that the global Internet of Things market is projected to grow $8.9 trillion in 2020. Since 2014, its compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is expected to be 19.92%, which is an indicator of growth for the IoT technology and other technologies surrounded by it such as data analytics and tools, Internet and connectivity, security systems.

But before you reach out to an IoT app development company for developing an app that optimizes your critical business-workloads, here are the 5 questions you must ask to yourself and your technology partner.

5 Must-Ask Questions Before Beginning an IoT Development Project

Enterprises looking to get the aspect of IoT or willing to move forward with IoT development project, the checklist goes as this:

#1. Does the mobile device have hardware compatibility with IoT device?

This is an important consideration for your business as hardware capabilities of mobile device is essential for creating an IoT app. The list may not be exhaustive but is highly critical. A number of things that need to be considered include: USB devices, Bluetooth dongles, cameras, audio, and other hardware peripherals such as storage media, sensors, port expanders, and so on.

The entire hardware system of mobile and IoT device should be compatible to achieve capabilities such as:

• Data processing and storage
• Data acquisition and control
• Connectivity
• Power management

For example, the processing power and storage of the mobile device used in IoT application largely depend on how much data is processed and how much data is consumed by the IoT app. It is the specifications of the processor and capacity of the memory determines the rate at which data is processed.

#2. Who owns the data collected, as it determines how secure the collected data is?

Among the many challenges of IoT, one that is dreaded of all is security. The consequences are so threatening to the entire IoT community that security in every aspect from applications to data is considered a priority.

However, since Internet in itself is not safe at all, often the concerns are put under the cover. But not all things can be ignored. So, for enterprises, it is important to know about the owner the data, as through the data, the real benefit of IoT is realized.

According to IBM, 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is generated every day by IoT technology. Most of the IoT application development companies do not keep the data, rather they just want the access, so as to extract necessary information out of it.

Ian Hughes, an analyst at 451 Research, says that “sharing of data across silos and multiple companies can provide significant new insights” and so a cross-correlation of data can be established, after analyzing the risk, to better manage the responsibility of data security.

#3. What programming protocols are being followed to support IoT?

For making an IoT device work with a mobile device, IoT application development companies use a series of programming protocols. An external accessory framework, widely known as common code chunk, to inform the mobile device that another object is attempting to communicate with the device.

Next, the protocols are declared that must be standard to link the IoT device with an IoT app, so that device can be effectively linked and communicate with each other.

#4. Which one you are going to choose between off the shelf IoT platform or build from scratch?

IoT has many layers that makes it workable and useful for the business. A few layers unfold as this:

• Operating system with single or multiple protocols for communications
• Connectivity either through Internet or to an Internet gateway
• Software and infrastructure operating in the cloud or on-premises that organize the data stream
• The software manages the things and update the firmware, if required
• Organization receives the data and process it
• IoT app that end users interacts with

Most of the IoT app development projects revolve around the last 2 layers: receiving organized data, processing the data, and users using the app to complete a task. An off the shelf IoT platform helps in performing time series for archiving for data received, while also provide capabilities for data management and activation, a message bus in real time, and last but not the least, an API for communication to take place between IoT app and the platform.

By creating off the shelf IoT platform, an IoT app development company can save time by simply creating a dashboard and APIs that connects to the data.

#5. Are the business cases for IoT is defined?

IoT is the latest in the business, and so having the app should be focused on realizing its true potential, using the data to generate customer insight, and further using the insight into decision-making. All these require effective change management strategy that would help a business to realize the value of process transformation.

IoT development companies need to be ready with use cases to help enterprises understand the monetization process of the IoT apps or enable them to generate value of the application.

Bottomline Considerations

IoT needs an ecosystem of its own, whether it is related to application to function or to the manage and usage system to realize its value. So, it is essential to create a fully defined process to measure the contribution of IoT into the processes and the business.

This article is contributed by Siya Carla, Solution Consultant at Finoit Technologies