Internet of Things

1. Introduction

Lights comes and belongs to different industries and engineering fields, 
considered itself as a component of the new era of the Internet of Things with also 
a representation in the paradigm of home automation.

1.1. History the internet of things

There is a starting point to every revolution, the internet of things begins in
the XIX century in  Switzerland with a well known concept nowadays, home automation.

The union of the words home and automation gives a meaning to the portmanteau as 
the use of automatic or remote means to regulate, create or change technology systems 
in homes, houses or places. There are various examples of home automation, such as 
automatic curtains, smart thermostats, etc.

The concept of home automation begins in 1885 when the Swiss engineer Albert Butz 
invented a thermostat that would automatically regulate heating systems.
Not too long after that, automation systems started to become an expensive luxury 
gadget for houses, having a huge impact in the inventors and engineers in the end 
of the XIX century. People like Mark Honeywell or Nikola Tesla patented multiple 
devices such as remote controls or heating systems among others that could be controlled 
remotely and considered, although the huge price of it made it something not as transcendental
as such inventors wanted it to be.

As a parallel story, the revolution of computers from the 1970s started making technology 
cheaper and more accessible to a normal person life, while a computer was a luxury in homes, 
some of the best schools around the countries had a computer for kids to start touching and 
getting to know it. That fact, started to create curiosity in the technology field and, those
gadgets that once seemed inaccessible and were thought only for collectivists and enthusiasts 
around the world, would soon become something everybody would need.

Such revolution made software accessible for everybody to know. In the end of the 80s geeks 
from the best houses started to buy computers installing components into it, development
started to be a thing within normal people and not something left within engineers.
The biggest technology companies were created or entered in a huge bubble that would catapult its fame, 
companies such as Apple, Microsoft, IBM or Dell, among others.

After about 30 years, in the 2000s, the web bubble would start, the companies mentioned before 
would be in top of its business and everybody would have a computer at their homes, although 
it was still luxury and the problem still remained. Hardware was not that accessible to people 
as software started to be in the 70s.

It has not been until the second decade of the XXI century when, with the increasing popularity
of technology, IoT, and research combined with the increasing amount of engineers among others 
that home automation, and specially cheaper hardware has gained track again. Smartphones, tablets,
convertibles and computers are something in a day to day life in everybody’s life and that fact, 
opens a world for engineers that is insanely huge.

The capacity to get to a website or to discover a product in just one click, control a car 
within a phone, open the doors 300 miles away from home within your watch, connect to people 
around the world with milliseconds of delay, etc. Is something that  was unimaginable just 15 years ago.

The fact that the iPhone was introduced 9 years ago has made technology available to everybody, 
and everybody has access to it now, 2016 is the year of artificial intelligence, smart-things and 
connected devices and, within this field is where Lights enters.

The future is unknown but, the fact that an ABI research shows that only in 2012, 1.5 million 
devices were installed across the United States that were considered home automation devices, 
with a projection of 6.4 billion devices by 2020 makes engineers think that this revolution is 
in no peak, this is the starting point of it, the beginning of the path.

That also comes with more technology companies in Silicon Valley and everywhere around the world 
pushing for those devices, Nest, with its smart thermostat, Philips with its Hue smart bulb or in
the other hand Apple with HomeKit, a platform to easy connect everything around home, lights, curtains,
heating systems, etc.

In a world where time is one of the things that are most appreciated around our society, smartness, 
easiness and fast delivery of information within a fast deployment of it makes this platform relevant.

The next years for home automation are exciting, but even more the concept of the internet of things.
Having everything connected to get that information as fast as it can be and whenever is best for us. 
Every day there are new products in the field, cheaper hardware means cheaper devices and more evolved 
technology means easiness to use those devices and more users within it.