IoT Product Proposal Assignment
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IoT Product Proposal Assignment
Introduction
The internet of things can get defined as the machine web and other devices that are smart that engage in communication with people and with each other to deliver information and insights (Ray, 2018). The consumption of energy by humans keeps becoming more and more every year, which has significantly impacted utility companies as they have to struggle in meeting the rising market demand. The good news is that companies are making use of the Internet of Things to find possible solutions to the problem of the rise in demand. Research provides that the internet of things is essentially the networking between physical devices and objects by using the actuators and sensors that are embedded to collect data about the devices and their environment to communicate the data to other objects that are linked through the wireless or wired networks (Luong et al., 2016). Generally, IoT has a significant impact on our day to day lives in several ways. Mainly, IoT has been established to be presented in several fields that are as follows. Energy management, manufacturing, healthcare, and medical systems, management of infrastructure, media, monitoring of the environment, transportation, home automation, and building, and deployments that are on a large scale. This paper seeks to provide a discussion on the possible solutions to the field of energy management, which is facing a significant amount of challenges that negatively affect our day to day activities.
Product proposal
Consumers in the sector of Energy Management are faced with significant challenges that include the rising costs of energy and the ever-changing conditions of living that make life challenging for most of the population. The sector is, therefore, in a constant struggle to achieve sustainability even with challenges that come with the continually evolving world to ensure that households that are dependent on it can lead lives that are comfortable. The product that would provide a solution to this problem by innovating how energy is managed and metered is the Smart Home Utility Manager (Shah et al., 2017). This would be a convenient device in ensuring that the energy needs of the population get achieved as they will be able to receive the necessary resources conveniently and without interruption.
The Smart Home Utility Manager is a much-needed product to enhance the reception of energy in homesteads. Smart utilities comprise of energy, which gets made up of gas and electricity and water utilities, which deploy the devices that are connected all over the grid and collects information that helps in delivering services in a more reliable and efficient way (Pitì et al., 2017). The applications that exist in smart utility can be used by companies that deal with natural gas, electricity, and water utility. This product is needed to enhance the availability of energy in homes to ensure the smooth running of all the basic for the day to day activities to be successful.
A product similar to the IoT that has been proposed that has been offered in the market is the Smart Energy System of Management that gets used by businesses in the detection of bills that are faulty, that may have been charged on the business by the providers of the utility (Zhou et al., 2016). The solution for smart energy can also be used by companies in determining the consumption of electricity per department to ensure that improvements are made in case of overuse of electricity in a particular department. Power quality events can get analyzed automatically as the smart energy systems of management make such events possible.
What makes the smart home utility manager a better product than others is the aspect of convenience in the sense that it takes care of a wide variety of needs for both homes and businesses. It manages smart utilities for dwellings and for company’ activities. The smart utilities that get maintained are an aspect of the city that is smart that is responsible for making urban areas respond more to man-made and natural events, be sustainable, and healthy for its citizens. The activities of companies that provide utilities are becoming increasingly intelligent and due to their digitized. The digitization in which the current technologies have been adopted making it possible or the companies that provide the utilities to be able to collect data that is relevant about their customer use and carry out managing supply, pricing that is dynamic and conduct an analysis of the needs in terms of resources in future. Some of the devices that get used in the grid for smart utility include the solar instrumentation and smart meters that make it possible for purchases of energy to be made in real-time, savings for the generation of power and monitoring, and the devices for rapid disconnection and connection.
The chosen market that the IoT product can benefit
The problem that was identified for the market that needed this product to help solve it concerned the rising demand for energy caused by the high consumption. The smart home utility manager helps solve the problem in the market by providing a way through which companies that provide the utilities can manage their data to ensure that all its areas with the consumers are monitored to ensure that they experience less or no energy interruptions. The smart meters help their customers manage the usage and costs of the utilities. The utility companies are also able to manage the supply making it more convenient and efficient for the clients. The IoT product enhances the processes that are existing in the sensed that supply gets managed better and the operations of the utility companies have become more digitized and intelligent in the collection of information about the pricing and how the customer uses the utilities like water and electricity (Avancini et al., 2019). The products have also been improved because the IoT has made it possible for the products from the utilities and the company to be easily accessible, and with the low pricing, the customers are able to access conveniently. The smart home utility manager provides a new product offering in the sense that it enhances the reception of the utilities to the target market in such a way that the deployment of the services including, water, gas, and electricity across the grid have become more reliable and efficient to be able to sufficiently meet the needs of their customers.
May utilities have proceeded with marketplaces in which the offering of various products like the smart thermostats through e-commerce whereby the products get posted online where they get spotted by potential customers who purchase the item (Kalyani, 2017). The transaction takes place ion an online platform, thus promoting e-commerce as the product gets presented on the online channel by the seller and it gets bought by an interested party through the same channel which significantly creates new opportunities for the utility companies to acquire revenue through e-commerce on the smart home space. The use of the Smart Home Utility Manager supports e-commerce in the sense that the smart meters that get used make it possible for the customers to purchase the energy and receive the tokens to be keyed into the smart meters, with the whole purchase process getting done through the use of current technologies and the internet. The ability of dynamic pricing to be performed makes it possible for the customers to access the pricing of the utilities through the use of the internet devices that also help in the promotion of online purchases of water, gas, and energy. E-commerce gets supported by the IoT in the sense that the digitization of the utility companies through the and the development of smart come with the evolution in the manner in which transactions get carried out and for this reason, the payments for the purchase of the various utilities gets done through the online channels.
Pros and cons of the Smart Home Utility Manager
Pros
There is a significant number of advantages and benefits that come with the use of the smart home utility manager. The costs of utilities are able to be managed as the usage of energy, gas, and water is able to be monitored by individuals helping them understand the different aspects of consumption. Smart homes make it possible for the enhancement of the delivery of services as the services can get delivered in a more reliable and efficient manner. Another pro is that the efficiency of energy gets improved as one can be able to customize their home space into becoming more energy-efficient. This gets brought out in the fact that the owner of the home can be able to use a smart thermostat that is programmable to control the cooling and heating of their home. The thermostat is able to learn one’s scheduling and the preferences in terms of temperature then provide suggestions of the settings that conserve energy throughout the day. The work in such a way that the thermostat controls the energy making it impossible for one to worry about wastage of energy. Another pro is that the use of the smart meters make it possible for the user to adjust their energy usage habits to be able to lower their bills for electricity. Also, the number of system-wide failures in power and the blackouts get significantly reduced with the use of smart meters.
Cons
The smart home utility manager comes with its own share of cons that are as follows. The responsibility for maintenance of the system gets placed more on the consumer; additional costs get incurred in terms of the installation of the meters, training the personnel, equipment development, and there may also be challenges of cost in the implementation of the new data storage processes. Paying attention to the potential of the smart meters to save energy may be a challenge for the consumers or establish personal data usage. Ensuring the privacy and security of the metering data can be a significant issue associated with the use of the Smart Home Utility Manager.
Conclusion.
The use of technology through the Smart Home Utility Manager can have a significant impact on the population’s access to the necessary utilities, which are water, energy, and gas. The main focus of this paper was on access to electricity, which has been a significant problem for the population due to the rising costs and demand for electricity. While the smart home utility manager makes access and usage of energy more reliable and efficient, a number of challenges have been expressed with regard to a further increase in the costs of other aspects in the usability of smart meters. While meaningful solutions to the problems faced in the field on Energy Management have been established, the various solutions come with its own share of cons, which should not be ignored. However, the situation in the sector is improved, given the pros outweigh the cons. It is crucial that the industry, through experts in the management of energy, conducts research on the ways through which the issues that arise from the use of technology in the management of energy can be addressed.
References
Ray, P. P. (2018). A survey on Internet of Things architectures. Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences, 30(3), 291-319.
Luong, N. C., Hoang, D. T., Wang, P., Niyato, D., Kim, D. I., & Han, Z. (2016). Data collection and wireless communication in the Internet of Things (IoT) using economic analysis and pricing models: A survey. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(4), 2546-2590.
Shah, S., Khalid, R., Zafar, A., Hussain, S. M., Rahim, H., & Javaid, N. (2017, March). An optimized priority enabled energy management system for smart homes. In 2017 IEEE 31st International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA) (pp. 1035-1041). IEEE.
Zhou, K., Fu, C., & Yang, S. (2016). Big data-driven smart energy management: From big data to big insights. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 56, 215-225.
Avancini, D. B., Rodrigues, J. J., Martins, S. G., Rabêlo, R. A., Al-Muhtadi, J., & Solic, P. (2019). Energy meters evolution in smart grids: A review. Journal of cleaner production, 217, 702-715.
Pitì, A., Verticale, G., Rottondi, C., Capone, A., & Lo Schiavo, L. (2017). The role of smart meters in enabling real-time energy services for households: The Italian case. Energies, 10(2), 199.
Kalyani, K. (2017). Implementation of IoT in E-Commerce. International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 3(8).