The Internet of things (IOT) is a concept that has emerged from a vision of an always connected world. With this as motivation, Samsung Electronics is striving to enrich people's lives by providing intuitive mobile devices and appliances that enables truly connected living for everyone, everywhere.
"With our products and enterprise solutions, we enable manufacturers to develop more advanced and intuitive products for consumers in order to help move the world to the IOT ideal," says Paulo Ferreira, director of Enterprise Mobility at Samsung South Africa.
Innovation is at the core of what Samsung does; setting the pace for the global electronics industry and paving the way for advanced devices and solutions that will enhance user experiences of tomorrow. There is an expectation that connected inventions will proliferate, with some estimates putting the number of devices as high as 50 billion by 2020. The reason for the rapid growth is due to the fact that the technology has evolved and more devices are being developed as smart connected devices.
Samsung is embracing IOT. The company announced at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2016 that by 2020, people will experience the reality of an inter-connected world. This shows a definite intent towards making devices smart, linked and intelligent. With technologically advanced connectivity, costs have come down and the form factors have reduced in size - some devices are even smaller than a postage stamp today.
Ferreira expects consumers to lead the way to the IOT world. "First, IOT devices will be evident in smart homes, while some of these units will also appeal to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and SOHOs (small office/home office), from there, making a footprint into enterprise environments. It should be noted that IOT-enabled consumer products are just one aspect of Samsung's push into the IOT environment," states Ferreira.
"We believe that the promise of IOT can only be achieved through convenience, securing devices and integrating business intelligence with analytics in order to reach the goal of seamless connectivity among devices anywhere, anytime. The objectives of IOT coupled with our integrated devices is to improve living standards and create new business efficiencies and opportunities in retail, healthcare, logistics, buildings, energy, cities, and the home," continues Ferreira.
The IOT dream will be recognised solely on interconnectivity, in a setting where innovators develop new IOT platforms and applications. "Samsung understands that no single manufacturer can work in a silo in order to realise the reality of IOT - it has to be done through various partnerships, and with technology adhering to IOT requirements," notes Ferreira.
In the enterprise environment, Samsung's new ARTIK IOT modules (a family of modules tailored for lOT), will provide the building blocks for people creating new IOT solutions. ARTIK modules, now on the road to Beta, come with built-in connectivity and an open software environment. Along with ARTIK modules, Samsung offers developers tools such as Samsung SAMIIO, an agnostic data exchange platform warranting sensors, apps and services to communicate using a standard set of APIs.
In addition, the SmartThings OpenCloud is a software and data aggregation service powered by SAMI to validate disparate applications like lighting, locks and appliances to communicate and receive input using a remote or mobile app. Samsung is currently working with selected developers through its Certified ARTIK Partner Programme to harness Samsung's enterprise IOT solutions.
Samsung fully supports the development of solutions that will assist in the proliferation of the IOT and the improvement of people's lives and organisations' businesses. "Instead of development partners having to build the electronics and sensors themselves, we have come up with a family of hardware components and tools to help IOT solution developers to fast-track development," concludes Ferreira.
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