The Internet of Things: Think Small and Think Big

The hospitality industry has already adopted the Internet of Things a little earlier than many other fields. Just consider the automatic mini-bar. Guests pull a bottle of beer or a can of peanuts out, and the mini-bar automatically adds it to their bill. No need to sign anything, no need to call for room service, just grab and pay.

Ultimately this can be expected to a number of other areas of hospitality. Consider an app already in development that will allow guests to open the front door of their hotel room just by walking up to it with their phone in their pocket.

The hotels that seize on the technology early promise a higher degree of ease and luxury than one expects from the average roadside motel. The IoT can make driving safer, it can make life more convenient, and in some industries, it can make the world a little more comfortable.

Beyond the private sector, consider what the IoT can do for public services. The BigBelly Solar garbage can is a solar powered trash composter that uses an internet connection to let HQ know when it’s time to collect. When every trash can on the street is hooked up to the network, suburbanites can forget about sanitation crews missing them on trash day, if “trash day” is even a reality by that point.

If anyone wants to take a guess at where the IoT is going to have the largest impact, here’s a tip: think bigger.