History of Internet of Things is discussed in this article as the Internet of Things (IoT) is a tech revolution that is growing faster than many people understand it.
To give you a sense, in 2018 there were 7 billion IOT devices. By 2019, that number had almost quadrupled to 26.6 billion. In the year 2020, 31 billion new Internet of Things devices were connected to the web.
There will be 41.6 billion IoT devices in 2025 that will be capable of generating 79.4 zettabytes (ZB) of data.
But really understand the significance of these numbers along with achieving a simple explanation of what the Internet of Things.
But really understand the significance of these numbers along with achieving a simple explanation of what the Internet of Things.
That means how this network of things got started and the goals it was designed to achieve. Let’s explore the history of Internet of Things.
Who is the Father of IOT?
- The Internet of Things was named as a concept in 1999 by Kevin Ashton.
- Ashton began exploring the idea while working for manufacturing giant Procter and Gamble as a brand manager for Oil of Olay.
- He recognized a disconnect between the inventory systems at retailers and the actual inventory on the shelf.
- Because, store employees and managers were scanning the barcodes of products to sell them, they assumed there was some sort of back-end tracking that would let them know when products were out of stock.
- However, this wasn’t the case until Ashton pioneered radio frequency ID (RFID) technology on cosmetics.
- By empowering the shelf and register to talk to the products and inventory system, Ashton closed the gap between inventory tracking and supply chain management.
- Though Ashton coined the term Internet of Things, he later amended that the name Internet of Things might have been a better description.
IOT History Timeline Explained:
If you are looking for a longer more comprehensive look at the technologies and ideas that gave rise to the IOT continue reading.
1832:
As electromagnetic telegraph was created by Baron Schilling in Russia and in 1833 Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber invented their own code to communicate over a distance of 1200m within Gottigen Germany.
1844:
Samuel Morse sends the first morse code public telegraph message What hath God wrought? from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore.
1926:
Nikola Tesla in an interview with Colliers magazine:
“When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things begins particles of a real and rhythmic whole and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.” (not the 802.11 version).
1990:
- Considered the first IOT devices, John Romkey created a toaster that could be turned on and off over the Internet of the October 89 INTEROP conference. Dan Lynch, President of Interop promised Romkey that, if Romkey was able to bring up his toaster on the Net, the appliance would be given star placement in the floor-wide exhibitors at the conference.
- The toaster was connected to a computer with TCP/IP networking. It then used an information base (SNMP MIB) to turn the power on.
1991:
The first web page was created by Tim Berners-Lee.
1992:
Mark Weiser’s Scientic American article on ubiquitous computing called The Computer for the 21st Century is written:
“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”
1993:
- Created by Quentin Stafford-Fraser and Paul Jardetzky the Trojan Room Coffee Pot was located in the Trojan Room within the Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge and was used to monitor the pot levels with an image being updated about 3x a minute and sent to the buildings server.
- It was later put online for viewing once browsers could display images.
1994:
Steve Mann creates WearCam.
1995:
The Internet goes commercial with Amazon and Echobsy(Ebay).
1997:
Paul Saffo’s prescient article:
“Sensors Next Wave of Infotech Innovation.”
1998:
Google is incorporated.
1998:
In-touch a project at MIT was developed by Scott Brave, Andrew Dahley and Professor Hiroshi Ishii.
“We then present in-touch which applies Synchronized Distributed Phusical Objects to create a Tangible Telephone for long distance haptic communication.”
1998:
A year before losing his battle to cancer Mark Weiser continues his explorations into explorations into the topic and constructed a water fountain outside his office whose flow and height mimicked the volume and price trends of the stock market.
“Ubiquitous computing is roughly the opposite of virtual reality”
Weiser wrote:
“Where virtual reality puts people inside a computer-generated world, ubiquitous computing forces the computer to live out here in the world with people.”
1999: (A big year for the IOT and MIT)
The Internet of Things term is coined by Kevin Ashton executive director of the Auto-ID Center
“I could be wrong, but I am fairly sure the phrase Internet of Things started life as the title of a presentation I made at Procter and Gamble (P and G) in 1999. Linking the new idea of RFID in P and G supply chain to the then-red-hot topic of the Internet was more than just a good way to get executive attention. It summed up an important insight which is still often misunderstood.”
1999:
- Neil Gershenfelf was speaking about similar things from the MIT Media Lab in his book When Things Start to Think and when establishing the Center for Bits and Atoms in 2001.
- “In retrospect it looks like the rapid growth of the World Wide Web may have been just the trigger charge that is now setting off the real explosion, as things start to use the Net.”
1999:
- Auto-ID Labs opens which is the research-oriented successor to the MIT Auto-ID Center, originally founded by Kevin Ashton, David Brock and Sanjay Sarma.
- They helped develop the Electronic Product Code or EPC, a global RFID-based item identification system intended to replace the UPC bar code.
1999:
Neil Gross in Business Week:
“In the next century, planet earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the Internal as a scaffold to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being stitched together. It consist of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices; thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, EKGs, electroencephalographs. These will probe and monitor cities and endangered species, the atmosphere, our ships, highways and fleets of trucks, our conversations, our bodies-even our dreams.”
2000:
Starting off what is now becoming a meme, LG announces its first Internet Refrigerator plans.
- The Ambient Orb created by David Rose and others in a spin-off from the MIT Media Lab is released into the wild with NY Times Magazine naming it as one of the ideas of the year.
- The Orb monitors the Dow Jones, personal portfolios, weather and other data sources and changes its color based on the dynamic parameters.
2003-2004:
- The term is mentioned is main-stream publications like The Guardian Scientific American and the Boston Globe.
- First smart watch introduced in 2004.
- Projects like Cooltown Internet0 and the Disappearing Computer Initiative seek to implement some of the ideas and the Internet of Things term starts to appear in book titles for the first time.
- RFID is deployed on a massive scale by the US Department of Defense in their Savi program and Walmart in the commercial world.
2005:
- The IOT hit another level when the UN’s International Telecommunications Union ITU published its first report on the topic.
“A new dimension has been added to the world of information and communication technologies (ICTs) from anytime, anyplace connectivity for anyone, we will now have connectivity for anything. Connections will multiply and create an entirely new dynamic network of networks.”
2005:
- Ahead of its time, the Nabaztag was originally manufactured by the company Violet and created by Rafi Haladjian and Olivier Mevel.
- The little WiFi enabled rabbit was able to alert and speak to you about stock market reports, news headlines, alarm clock, RRS-Feeds as well as connect to each other.
- The statement was “if you can even connect rabbits, then you can connect anything.”
2006:
Recognition by the EU and the First European IOT conference is held.
2007:
- Apple smartphone iPhone and wearable Fibit was released.
- A group of companies launched the IPSO Alliance to promote the use of Internet Protocol (IP) in networks of smart objects and to enable the Internet of Things.
- The IPSO alliance now boasts over 50 member companies, including Bosch, Cisco, Ericsson, Intel, SAP, Sun, Google and Fujitsu.
2008:
The FFC voted 5-0 to approve opening the use of the White Space Spectrum.
2009:
- Google started testing self driving cars.
- According to Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG): “The Internet of Things was born in between 2008 and 2009 at simply the point in time when more things or objects were connected to the Internet than people.”
- Citing the growth of smartphones, tablets PCs the number of devices connected to the Internet was brought to 12.5 billion in 2010, while the world’s human population increased to 6.8 billion, making the number of connected devices per person more than 1 for the first time in history.
2010:
Chines Premier Wen Jiabao calls the IOT a key industry for China and has plans to make major investments in it.
2011:
- First Smart TV was launched.
- The new protocol allows for addresses or as Steven Leibson put it, we could assign an IPV6 address to every atom on the surface of the earth and still have enough addresses left to do another 100+ earths.
- Arduino and other hardware platform platforms mature and make the IOT accessible to DIY taking interest in the topic.
- Acquisitions and VC investment in the space including the IOT platform Pachube being acquired, IOT security company Mocano raising a round of funding and other VC taking notice of the industry.
2013:
Google lens were released in 2013.
2014:
Till 2014, the following are major trends in development:
- Eco caused a surge in smart home market
- IoT for Healthcare was introduced
- Renewable energies
- IoT for Automotive Industry
- IoT for Smart Agriculture
2017:
The major trends in IoT in 2014 were as below:
- Tesla introduced auto-pilot drives for their cars.
- IoT and Blockchain for security.
- IoT Devices and More DDoS Attacks.
- IoT, Artificial Intelligence, and Containers.
- IoT and New Business Models were introduced.
2020:
In the 2020, major IoT developments were as below:
- Google smart home: Google smart home voice controller has a lot of interesting features.
- Amazon dash button
- Amazon echo plus voice controller
- Kuri mobile robot
- Doorbell cam
- Smart light switches
- Smart Lock
- Air pollution monitor
