Overview

　　It has been over a decade since the term Internet of Things （IoT） was first coined. Making its way to the center of the stage， it has now become mainstream. All of a sud-den， leading companies are adopting the term vigorously into their most advanced products and services. It is trendy and re-flects state-of-the-art thinking. However， as the term is more widely used， its interpre-tations become more diverse. Some would call any connected device an IoT solution， while others will only refer to big data analytics as the IoT aspect of the product.

　　In this paper we will sort out what is con-sidered the IoT， and define and explore the necessary building blocks of an IoT system， its main virtues and what it takes to build one. We will show that with the help of prop-er devices， making your device or product IoT enabled is a fairly straightforward task.

　　What is the IoT？

　　So， what exactly is the Internet of Things （IoT）？ How is it different from the Internet we know and use on a daily basis？ Does the fact that it is referred to as the Internet “of Things” stand in contrast to some other Internet， and if not， why is there any distinction to begin with？ Why is a postfix needed to designate things in particular？

　　First， one needs to realize that even basic Internet， the one that we all use on a day-to-day basis， has gone through a great deal of changes over the years. It has gone from being a huge knowledge sharing system to its current state， which is better described as a service-oriented infrastructure. The majority of web traffic nowadays is already non-human and a large share of the content is dynamically created.

　　The massive explosion of online services， further inspired by the smartphone and handheld revolution， which made these services highly accessible， has created a demand to leverage technology for machine-to-machine （M2M） communication. It has also created a decline in the cost for adding connectivity capabilities into products.

　　The cloud computing evolution， supported by an increase in storage capacity， has also brought the ability to scale the amount of data that can be stored effectively and affordably. This is yet another angle in enabling machines to generate and collect large amounts of data on a regular basis.

　　This data has to be processed， analyzed and distilled so that meanigful insights can be extracted and action may be taken based on those insights. The process of making sense out of all this data is also commonly referred to as big data analytics.

　　Yet， having realized the above， it is still unclear to what extent the Internet-of-people and the Internet-of-machines will blend. Today， the connection is still quite loose. While both share the same infrastructure， the level of interaction between the two is fairly limited. This is， in fact， the essence of the questions introduced at the beginning. Stated differently， it is important to understand how many Internets are there. In our view there will eventually be a

　　
2 Texas Instruments

　　convergence toward one single Internet to serve all. This realization is critical for the immersion of informa-tion coming from machines.