The Internet of Things is an extension of the Internet, which aims to make everything connected.

Since it is an extension of the Internet, let's start with the Internet we are familiar with. What we usually call the Internet is actually a huge network that connects all computers together. As long as the equipment connected to the Internet can exchange information with each other.

At the beginning, the Internet was connected to computers, which is what we call the Internet era. Slowly, with the development of science and technology, computers are becoming smaller and smaller and more convenient to move. Then, tablets, mobile phones and other networking terminals have emerged, entering the mobile Internet era.

With the continuous development of science and technology, people have found that not only computers and mobile phones, but also everything in the world can connect to the Internet and exchange information as long as it is equipped with a networking component. For example, after the rice cooker is connected to the Internet, it can exchange data with my mobile phone. The sensor on the cooker will collect the cooking information and transmit it to my mobile phone. I can also easily control the cooker remotely through my mobile phone.

Once more and more "things" that could not be connected to the Internet connect to the Internet and realize the data exchange between all things, we can say that the era of the Internet of Things has come. Therefore, the Internet of Things, to put it bluntly, is to connect all things in the world to the Internet, so that each terminal can exchange information, which is the so-called Internet of Things.

What's the use of the Internet of Things?

Take our smart phones as an example. Now we can listen to music and watch videos on our mobile phones anytime and anywhere. Is it because we store music and videos on our mobile phones? Obviously not, because mobile phones can send and receive data through the Internet and communicate with cloud servers, we can see videos stored in the cloud anytime, anywhere.

This is the concept of "intelligence". Think about the era before the advent of smart phones, when we listened to music, whether we could only download it to the memory card first, because at that time, mobile phones could not be connected to the Internet and could not exchange data with other devices.

Therefore, in the future, everything in the world will be connected to the Internet. It will become "smart" just like connecting mobile phones to the Internet, and intelligence is to improve efficiency.

Therefore, we can see that the concepts of smart home, smart city, smart agriculture, smart medicine and so on have emerged. In essence, we can simply understand that we can use the Internet as a tool to empower other industries, that is, "Internet of Things Application=Any Industry+Internet".

How does the Internet of Things develop

There is no doubt that the Internet of Things is the trend of the times. With the huge population of 7 billion in the world and the policy background of "Made in China 2025" and "Industrialization 4.0", the future market is huge. It is understood that the global Internet of Things equipment has reached 7 billion units in 2018, and is expected to increase to 22 billion units by 2025. This market is far larger than that of a mobile phone owned by 70 people in the world.

However, the current development of the Internet of Things is still at an early stage, and technology is still a stumbling block that restricts the development of the Internet, such as the basic fifth generation mobile communication technology (5G). Just as mobile payment and live video will be available only with 4G network, 5G will be the infrastructure of the Internet of Things.

Secondly, the popularity of a new technology and new things cannot be separated from the power of commerce. Just like smart phones, if there is no competition between various mobile phone manufacturers, keep lowering costs, and expand the market, smart phones will always be laboratory products. However, enterprises are always profit seeking. Under the circumstances of immature technology, high cost and small market, they still do not have the conditions to popularize widely.

The prospect of the Internet of Things is undoubtedly bright. From the computer age, to the Internet era, to the mobile Internet era, to the future Internet of Things era, every technological change is bound to cause a major reshuffle of the industry and the world.