Internet of Things in 2024

The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming mainstream, and its popularity in enterprises, workplaces, cities, and homes is constantly growing.

For those who are not yet familiar, IoT is an ecosystem of devices and technologies connected to the Internet that constantly collect and transmit data for analysis and application.

Examples of devices that are part of IoT include smart meters and virtual assistants.

Due to the growing popularity of IoT, businesses need to stay informed about what IoT developments to expect in 2024.

What Can We Expect from 2024?

The short answer is continued growth. In 2024, IoT is expected to keep expanding rapidly, with the number of installed IoT devices reaching 30.9 billion by 2025. This is due to anticipated significant growth in investment, with over 100 trillion rubles spent on IoT development in 2024. This means increased incentives for designing and manufacturing IoT hardware, as well as for developing and deploying rapidly growing IoT software.

To understand how rapidly IoT technologies are advancing, consider that their global adoption is happening faster than the historical adoption of electricity and telephones. While it is true that technologies grow proportionally, the pace of IoT adoption is expected to exponentially exceed the development rates of modern technologies in the next few years.

This means that by 2025, the market value is expected to increase by 600 trillion rubles, significantly outpacing other technological advancements.

What Trends Are Driving This Growth?

Numerous trends will undoubtedly contribute to the further development of IoT in 2024. Below, we list several trends that will have the most significant impact.

Remote Monitoring

Remote monitoring is a type of software that allows managed service providers (MSPs) to observe and, if necessary, control IT systems, enabling various useful interventions. For example, remotely installing new software on devices or monitoring the behavior of a managed device for performance analysis and diagnostics.

A McKinsey study showed that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated digital adoption by about seven years. In the context of remote monitoring, this is primarily because lockdowns necessitated analyzing and automating procedures remotely.

Although these technological advances were driven by necessity, they persist as the pandemic's urgency begins to wane. Additionally, the remote monitoring aspect of IoT has been used to monitor structural integrity, building occupancy levels, machine performance, and automated learning, making it likely to remain one of the most significant IoT impacts in 2024.

Data Analysis

Data is one of the most important strategic weapons in a business's arsenal, as it allows stakeholders to plan and implement their strategies with confident future forecasts.

Given that in 2024, the buying and selling of IoT data will become an even more important component of IoT development, it is clear that IoT promises to play a significant role in advancing data collection and analysis in several areas.

An example is the use of IoT devices in the supply chain sector. Because supply chain elements can collect data from interaction points and transmit it promptly, businesses can avoid crises and minimize their impact, ensuring smooth supply chain operations.

IoT data can also be used in marketing tailored to customer needs. By using consumer IoT devices such as virtual assistants and smart meters, companies can track customer behavior and preferences, allowing them to accordingly adapt their subsequent marketing strategies.

Smart Cities

In recent years, "smart cities" have begun adopting IoT data collection technologies. This is done to make city management more convenient for residents, environmentally friendly, and financially beneficial. By 2024, this area is expected to remain one of the main IoT domains. Smart cities use initiatives including connected sensors, lighting, and meters to collect and analyze data, which is then used to adapt and improve infrastructure and utilities.

An interesting aspect of smart city development is innovations related to digital twins — virtual representations of physical objects. An example is the collaboration between Bentley Systems and GPS Lands Singapore to create a digital twin of the entire city of Singapore.

It integrates information about buildings, transportation, parks, drainage, etc., allowing city operators to monitor everything from traffic to bridge maintenance, and also simulate floods for disaster planning.

Amsterdam is another interesting example. As one of the first European cities to implement an integrated smart city model, Amsterdam introduced an incentive system where residents can receive energy storage units when connecting their homes to the "smart grid".

This will create a system that continuously monitors current and voltage in the power grid. This can lead to significant efficiency gains, which in turn will reduce electricity prices and improve CO2 emissions indicators.

Clearly, cities worldwide are adopting IoT to make life more sustainable and efficient for their populations.

Healthcare

The pandemic demanded innovative healthcare solutions, and this trend is predicted to be one of the main IoT trends in 2024. The development of specialized medical "smart" devices, such as fitness bands, watches, smart scales, and blood pressure monitors, is an example of how IoT is moving from business-level innovations to reality for consumers and patients.

The advantage of these devices is that they can analyze and transmit highly accurate measurements of vital signs, allowing treatment to be adjusted accordingly. Conversely, healthcare professionals can use them to analyze the effectiveness or side effects of prescribed treatment, thus narrowing the gap between medicine and patient response from both sides.

In the coming year, IoT development in the healthcare sector is expected, including IoT-enabled hygiene monitoring devices that can reduce patient infection rates, as well as asset management that allows pharmacists, for example, to more precisely control temperature and humidity levels.

Security: The Main IoT Challenge

The expansion of the attack surface that will inevitably result from IoT growth in 2024 opens up much wider opportunities for cybercriminals to attack. The lack of user training that often accompanies IoT devices, as well as the relative ease with which they can be misconfigured or stolen, granting access to unauthorized users, pose complex security risks.

This may result in an increase in botnet prevalence. These networks, consisting of compromised devices controlled by cybercriminals, are often used to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which aim to disable a target's server, network, or service by overwhelming them with internet traffic. Many embedded systems, including both computers and IoT devices, are used as sources of attack traffic in DDoS attacks. This poses an even greater risk for IoT devices because administrators cannot always control which devices connect to their network. Although vendors do not consider this a serious risk, no active steps are being taken to form a regulatory protocol to protect customers. This could lead to persistent issues when considering how to integrate IoT into business in 2024.