[kyro]

This has never really been my impression of Internet of Things. The examples you've mentioned seem far too obvious and simplistic. To me, it's far more than scrambling to find the nth device to make smartphone-connected.

I've always looked at IoT as a mesh network of many specialized devices talking to each other to provide an overall context. For instance, speaking from my background: imagine a location sensor on a patient's wrist detecting an iBeacon in a particular ICU room indicating the patient has been upgraded, then triggering their vitals sensors to set to continuous monitoring, then upgrading the alert level for the patient's notifications in a physician's EMR, so on and so forth. In other words, these "Things" act more as specialized sensors, like our ears and eyes, that relay signals onto a digital thalamus/cerebrum where signals are integrated, a context is created, and actions are then taken.

I may be totally off-base here, and perhaps this isn't what Internet of Things is really about. But I hope it is.

[laurenstill]

So glad you mentioned this. I'm not sure what IoT for consumers looks like beyond text notifications from my smoker, but there are pretty big ramifications on the healthcare scene, and networking disparate units in a meaningful way. Just an example, I've seen several cardiology projects that track a patient from EMT to discharge while providing actionable insight. It's one of the few things in medicine I'm actually hopeful about.

[Animats]

That's an "industrial" application. Manufacturing plants have been heavily networked for decades. Hospitals are going that way, but security is a problem.

[xorcist]

I don't runderstand why you would want to have mesh networks at hospitals. It is a controlled environment where you could roll out a centralised infrastructure easily, with all the benefits of management, traceability and accountability that follows.

There is also "Internet" in IoT. I'm not convinced hospital equipment, like many other control systems, really should be Internet accessible.

[JoeAltmaier]

Disposable things? They need to be zero-configuration or they won't get used/connected at all. A mesh works that way; centralized usually doesn't.

[xorcist]

I don't what disposable tech exists in hospitals, but zero-configuration mesh means no authentication, and I think most medical data is far too sensitive for that.

[JoeAltmaier]

or... automatic authentication

[xorcist]

What's the difference? Or did I just have a "whoosh" moment (when a joke went over my head)?