More than 16 billion internet-enabled devices will be hooked up to the web by the end of the next decade, according to a new report.
Consultancy firm Analysys Mason predicited that even fridges of the future could be connected to the web, and able to place an order with your local supermarket to replenish dwindling supplies
The “internet of things” will expand to encompass around 16 billion devices by 2020, the report found.
The “internet of things” refers to a growing number of internet-enabled devices that can be hooked up to a network to communicate with other web-enabled gadgets and services.
These include devices such as home electricity systems, which are connected to the internet via smart metres to build a map of energy use.
“That figure might actually be a conservative estimate,” said Jim Morrish, principal analyst at Analysys Mason and author of the report. “Taking in to account the uncertainties inherent in forecasting new technologies 10 years out, we believe that a realistic number of devices may be 44 billion, and six billion a realistic minimum.
“That’s a worldwide average of between 0.8 and 5.8 internet-enabled devices for each person alive in 2020.”
Experts believe the smartphone will be the main “portal” in to the internet of things, aggregating and filtering information from a range of web-enabled devices owned by the user, and offering management and control functions – for instance, setting the time that a “smart cooker” would start cooking the evening meal, or granting remote entry to a property in order to allow a postman to leave a parcel on the porch.
“The most direct potential consequence of the internet of things is the generation of huge quantities of data,” said Morrish. “In a hypothetical internet of things environment, every physical object, and many virtual objects, may have a virtual twin ‘in the cloud’, which could be generating regular updates.”
