We all hear Internet of Thing and Big Data is big words we hear as new big trends which could change the future of computing and will bring next technical revolution. This Blog is focusing on discussing the IOT in home automation and its impacts. We also discuss how data management is changing with IOT.
IOT in Home Automation
IOT is maturing slowly despite the push from big fortune 500 companies. If you look at smartphone revolution of last 15 years, I would say we are in first the few years of that adaptation curve. If you look back to years 2003 to 2005 smartphones are predominantly used to check emails or browse the internet at the slowest speed. For many people, it is the luxury item in those days where the smartphone is very necessary within 15 years’ time. The change is so phenomenal that we could practically operate our bank accounts, purchase Tickets, interact on a social network with friends on another half of the earth or have fun by playing candy crush or watch your favorite football game live anywhere sitting in the world.
Now coming back to home automation we are in that early days of a smartphone revolution. There are home automation tools that can be operated from your smartphone. You could automate (in US market) your central Air conditioner/heat, garage doors, sprinkler system, security camera’s, security sensors, Fans/lights, front door locks and much more. Many of these have very practical uses for more comfortable life and building a smart home. But at the same time, people are cautious of the aspect of privacy (Some big guy is watching you) or these could lead to additional security threats. For example, tools like “Sesame” could be used to open your front door without using a key from your smartphone anywhere in the world. There could be practical uses at times where you are stuck in traffic and your kid (or well-known guests) is waiting at the front door. But what happens when a thief is able to hack it? Take an example of Tile, where it helps you track things like wallets, car keys and pets. Tile could be a useful tool but could easily be used to track people and loose their privacy. All they need to do is to leave the tile in your car to track where you’re driving or leave it in your laptop bag to track where you currently are. So does privacy trump convenience?
Things like Amazon “ECHO” or Google “Home” are more like “toys” for people but could evolve central consoles in the future to manage all IOT devices. At the same time, it is very hard to replace the smartphone in people’s hand with these devices. In short, there is a lot of opportunities for a company like Apple to revolutionize IOT.
A few of the IOT devices that are commonly used are:
1. A Smart Thermostat (NEST) can be controlled by smartphones and self-learning features that can reduce the energy cost. The new versions of Nest can be controlled thru Amazon “Echo”
2. Smart Sprinklers controller (Rachio) which is the replacement of a manual sprinkler controller and gives an additional functionality of managing all the functionality thru iPhone and with the additional intelligence of integrating to weather reports.They promise the intelligent management based on soil type and weather conditions. The latest versions can be controlled thru devices like Amazon”Echo” or google “Home”.
3.what If your car can tell what’s wrong with it?. If there is a smart device can communicate with the Car owner about the condition of Car?. There are many devices in the market “FIXD” is one of those used the diagnostic tool connect to redirect the information to your smartphone.
4.Smart Garage Door Opener (MYQ) which helps to control your garage doors thru smartphone and thru internet..
5. Front Door Opener (SESAME) is the smart lock is an add-on to existing locks/deadbolts of your home controlled thru smartphone and can open the door without keys and also lock and unlock the home over the internet.
6. Remind the important things (Tile) again an application can warn you important things like Wallet and also helps to locate them where you left them lost time and also find the lost things.
7. Home security Camera (Ring): there are many applications where you could see if somebody knock your door before you open the door. You can see them on your smartphone and communicate with them too.
There are lot more of similar devices and they keep evolving to specific needs Probably adaptability and price is barriers as well as security and Privacy. But in our distance future our dishwasher, refrigerator can alert us on our smartphone or Alexa (Amazon Echo) when there is a problem. Same time are we ready to pay additional $300 for an appliance for this feature. One of the major concern for consumers will be about somebody could take advantage of the information. For example, if somebody can hack “sesame” and open the front door without a key could risk the family. Many of these hiccups will be fixed in future and confidence on these devices to grow.
This is just illustration of how Data Management happens in IOT
Now look at Data management aspects of IOT:
Most of the IOT devices interact with the central cloud application and sends a lot of data as well as user interactions thru the smartphone application. Most of this data is very helpful for the consumer to measure the usefulness of the device as well as Device manufacturer to improve the device. But the data gathered thru the process could be enormous value for communities if used for positive causes. The data could be enormous as over the course of a year a device could be sending many gigabytes and collectively could lead to trillions of records.
Is this unstructured big data?
It all depends on how you look at it. Most of the data going thru interactions are very structured with specific information and instructions like” switch on my Air conditioner”. But same time, if you use a relational database as backend for operational management, could be possible depend on volume but could get into scalability challenges pretty quickly. ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation and Durability) principles force you to either accept higher response time or look for alternative solutions in big data stack. But same time high availability, reliability and quick response time are the challenges need to work thru as still need to be considered. Solutions like Mongo DB or Casandra could be alternatives.
But the data collected thru these interactions and organized properly could provide a lot of insights for consumers, device manufacturer as they could provide valuable information provider as the additional source of business or even helping the community.
Let say example like smart Thermostat can provide insights into his energy usage based on the number of hours the Air-conditioner operating/Heater operating which could help to manage costs and improve efficiency. If this data collected over the years can also provide impacts on seasonal changes and alert conditions like insulation wareoff or malfunctioning of appliance etc. Similarly, if usage records of all devices within a city can give you greater insights like weather impacts, the condition of houses, energy demands and what not. Again if privacy is not a concern there are tons of air-conditioner companies would like to access this data to sell new one if they know the customer is looking to replace soon based on the information. So the data is very useful if we put statistical and predictive analytics on top of this data to get answers to a lot of unknown with significant confidence (not necessarily 100% but mmaybe70% ). Given the high volumes of data an EDW might not a right fit and push for data lake and big data as an option but the results of insights still need to be structured to articulate in a very meaningful way, that could results still having a conventional BI solutions.
How MDM fits in?
Master data management has a very critical role in the solution despite hypothetically the user has only one system of record (that could change the scenarios like using devices like Amazon “Echo” to control).
Taking same smart Thermostat example, when user register himself and his device(s) is the first origination of master data and should be simple as there is a single source of entry. It should be static and should be decent quality, is not it?. Not so fast. Let's look at some of the scenarios
If the facility is a rental home or vacation home. You add devices for few weeks to few months and then the devices move to a new owner, so the device movement between users could be challenging thing to manage.
What about many life changing events like marriage, divorce, move out of the home all these could have an impact on the underlying data and need to be managed properly in master data?
As well as when a device is retired and replaced with a new one the continuity of the new device statistical data connected to the old device is also critical to have the connectivity of statistical information. Most of the electronic devices are outdated in few years or becomes faulty and need replacement in few years the device mastering is very critical too.
So Both Devices and Users need to be mastered with MDM principles and best practices for improved quality of service to customers as well as to keep accuracy of analytical data.
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