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January 09, 2015 at 06:51 AM
Do you remember the saying “there’s an app for that”? It was widely used with the proliferation of apps for anything and everything when the Apple iPhone came out. Well, that was almost 8 years ago (time flies!) and in 2015, everything is going to be about the “Internet of Things” or IoT.
But, what in the world is IoT? It basically means the interconnectivity of various electronic devices, or in laymen terms: everything and anything can connect to the Internet.
Your jewelry, for example, can track your pulse or your heartbeat, can be a pedometer, can track your sleeping patterns, movement, etc., like for example, the UP by Jawbone bracelet.
Or you can remotely control the temperature of your house via an app by installing a specific device, and there are plenty out there: Nest, Aprilaire, Smarthome and even Honeywell has these devices. It’s like having Rosie from The Jetsons in your home!
Another example: The first time I heard about “connected cars” that were also WiFi hotspots was back in 2008, when I was covering the car industry. Apparently, South Korea already had cars that were completely connected to the Internet, but they couldn’t bring those over to the U.S. because the Internet infrastructure couldn’t support them (or for some other reasons that I can’t recall right now).
But the “vision” and the catchy phrase the “Internet of Things”/IoT came about last year … and you’ll keep hearing this phrase, especially this week with Consumer Electronic Show (CES) 2015 in full swing in Las Vegas.
“It’s not science fiction anymore — it is science fact,” Samsung Electronics CEO BK Yoon said during his keynote at the CES, reported the USA Today on Monday. “I would argue that the age of the Internet of Things has already started,” he said.
“The ‘Internet of Things’ is the global network of interconnected devices working online (through the ‘cloud’) to monitor and manage our lives. This includes everything from Smartphones to wearable tech to apps that control the thermostat in your house,” Nic West, director at PinneyInsurance.com., explained to LifeHealthPro via email.
While every media outlet in the world writing about the new technology and devices that are being unveiled at CES, no object is off-limits. Everything can be connected seamlessly to the Internet. But how will this affect the insurance industry?
