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Posted on • Originally published at jumpgrowth.com

How Mobile Apps are Leveraging the Internet of Things HTML view Note

Concept of the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical objects or devices that boasts unique identifiers. It also can transfer data over the internet without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.

These devices are connectible to one another. It could occur anywhere, including smoke alarms, home appliances, or any device connected to the internet or other device in some manner.

You'll find most healthcare, agriculture, retail, and other sectors using IoT applications. It'll not be easy to appreciate the role of IoT until we start putting the IoT market potential in perspective. It was estimated that by 2020, IoT and mobile app development would comprise around 30 billion objects giving a market value of more than $7 trillion.

Why Should You Leverage IoT in Your Apps?

IoT is a huge market segment with lots of untapped opportunities. It has made people's lives easier in multiple ways, and there's no doubt that it'll continue to do so in the future as well.

The following are some reasons why you should use IoT mobile applications:

• The implementation of the Internet of Things has made devices more efficient and cost-effective.

• The mobile application with IoT sensors can respond in a way that is specifically tailored for particular scenarios, thereby saving energy on energy consumption.

• Most importantly, it's an avenue where you can take advantage of technology like machine learning to build your apps to predict patterns of behavior based on historical data.

How are Mobile Apps Leveraging the Internet of Things?

In this section, we'll take a look at how mobile apps are leveraging the IoT. This shall give us an idea of how you can use IoT to enhance your app's performance and functionality.

Building a Smart Home App

Many people have realized that they could control their household devices remotely. Therefore, this makes the process of doing manual tasks simpler.

Knowing how to create IoT app is something that has now become essential for every single household.

It's an app where you can turn lights off and on, control the temperature inside your house, or check who's at the door by just using your mobile phone.

In short, it's a platform that gives you complete control over your household appliances and devices.

An android app IoT can do just about everything you need it to do at your convenience, making it easier for you to manage your household needs.

Using IoT To Monitor Your Health

Did you know that your mobile app can help monitor health-related issues? Well, it's true. If you have diabetes or want to keep track of your body's blood pressure and sugar levels, an IoT-based app can help you do that.

The following are some benefits of using IoT to monitor your health:

• It allows you to monitor your health conditions from anywhere

• You are provided with the correct information which could help you detect a medical emergency

• An Internet of Things app for monitoring health can give doctors and patients access to real-time data regarding the body's vital signs, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and glucose levels.

Other than monitoring your body's health parameters, it can also help you monitor the performance of your coach or trainer during workouts.

For example, suppose you are building a fitness app to track their activity level by walking or running every day using a pedometer on their phone. In that case, that could be an IoT-based application.

Wearables

The wearable technology is often connected to an app that can connect with your smartphone via Bluetooth or WIFI.

Internet of things app is used to measure how active you are daily. When people set goals for themselves, such as walking 10,000 steps a day or running 3 miles every week, this app could help track the progress in achieving your goals.

Retail and Logistics

Internet of Things mobile app is revolutionizing the retail marketplace by streamlining the supply chain and automating inventory management. It's helping companies optimize their day-to-day business operations.

The following are some benefits of IoT in the retail industry:
• Retailers can now create an IoT app and have a clear picture of customer behavior. Therefore, they can plan and manage their business accordingly.

• Real-time data is available for all the stakeholders with IoT-based solutions, making it easier to control and monitor inventory levels in distribution centers or warehouses for fast replenishment.

• Using IoT, a retailer can track orders from the point of origin till they are delivered to the customers, thereby minimizing the risks of product loss or damage.

Agriculture

If you are into farming, then IoT mobile applications can help you monitor the status of your crops. An IoT-based system for monitoring agriculture could take images of a field and provide information like temperature, humidity, soil quality, moisture levels, etc.

These applications often use cameras that capture images based on predefined intervals and send them back to cloud storage. The images are then analyzed using image recognition techniques to detect the status of a crop.

What are the Benefits of IoT and Mobile App Development?

  1. Enables the tracking of assets which in turn enables maintenance and productivity management
  2. Helps monitor devices, processes, and assets in real-time
  3. Improves customer satisfaction by providing timely services through efficient monitoring
  4. Enhances business efficiency and minimizes operational costs
  5. Allows you to gather accurate business insights
  6. Improves Business Opportunities by providing feedback on the performance of IoT solutions and services
  7. Enables real-time data acquisition, which helps in effective decision-making.
  8. Improves Transparency and Visibility of Business Operations
  9. Improves Scalability of Business Processes
  10. Enables control over critical business functions like Inventory Management, Service Delivery, etc., by monitoring performance in real-time.

Challenges of IoT App Development and its Solutions

  1. Developing complex IoT apps is very costly due to the high development costs involved in developing an app that would provide real-time data services. The cost of using a platform like PubNub is because it allows you to build your intelligent applications connecting sensors and devices to the cloud.

  2. Security and privacy are the biggest concerns in IoT apps. Some users are apprehensive about using such services for fear of their private details being leaked to third parties or hackers. The Use of SSL encryption and other security measures can help you overcome these challenges.

  3. Some developers find it tricky to handle many APIs and SDKs in the backend. They find it challenging to keep track of all such components and their various functionalities. API Aggregation tools can help developers handle these challenges by combining multiple web services into a single API.

  4. The current IoT market is dominated by generic devices that are designed for mass consumption. The key challenge for IoT app developers is creating and building apps that can be used in niche markets, like healthcare or Agriculture.

  5. The current focus is on developing applications using off-the-shelf components and tools instead of providing custom solutions to niche user requirements.

Conclusion

Internet of Things mobile app is helpful in several different sectors, industries, and business types. The IoT app development market is set to grow as more developers realize the potential of these solutions.

Over the coming years, we will see many innovations in the IoT app development space as users discover how to use this technology to improve their businesses and lives.

We expect to see new IoT app development frameworks and platforms in the coming years which will help developers create better, more intelligent applications faster.

Read here for More Article: jumpgrowth

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