The Internet of Things (IoT) is a wonderful marketing term given to devices that are connected to the internet. Today everything from light switches, air conditioners to door locks have the option of being internet-connected.

Now that multiple companies have created “tags” that you can add to anything from keys to cars and packages, anything can be tracked. Across the business, industry, and retail almost every physical component has the option of being internet-connected.

There are thousands of companies offering IoT devices, and they generally fall into one of four categories:

1. Controller

A controller would be something like a keypad that you use to change the state of one or more devices or an app on a smartphone.

2. Responder

A responder would be connected to a device that is being controlled, and will allow (for example) a light to turn on or off.

3. Sensor
A sensor reports the current state of a device. For example, is the door unlocked or locked?

4. Hub

This connects all the IoT devices from a single (or sometimes multiple vendors) together.

This may all sound quite simple, but when you start to try and implement a more complex IoT solution the integration between all the various components and the logic you need to code to describe scenarios can become very involved.

Each IoT vendor will generally require their own “hub” to be used to connect their devices into your environment. Each hub will require its own controlling code, so if you are trying to connect devices from multiple companies together you will have to write (or have written) a control program that includes all these different functions for all of your devices.

Most companies provide an API for this, which allows you to integrate control through your own code, but it can still become very complex, quickly.

In the next installment, I’ll discuss some of this complexity.