Consumer Electronics Communications And Networks – A Discussion

Description of Devices

Discuss About The Consumer Electronics Communications And Networks?

In this era of globalization technology has emerged as a core function. In simple terms, Internet of Things can be defined as the interconnection via the Internet of computing devices embedded in everyday objects, enabling them to send and receive data. IOT is like a package where all the things at the home are connected with each other and communicate to make your experiment more fulfilling. When Philips says, its lightings systems will control lights based on the movies and TV channels, it is important that TV is also smart and integrated with Light systems only then it will control the lights based on the movies. These televisions will even allow you to receive your calls on mobile phones when you are not able to found your mobile phone at home and it is ringing (Feki & Kawsar, 2013). However, this technology is not yet mature and has lot of unanswered questions that is delaying the pace of its full fledge adoption. The main benefit with the use of Internet of Things is efficiency. However, there are issues of security, privacy, connectivity, etc. that should be resolved. The objective of this report is to discuss the Internet of Things in my home dwelling. This report is based on the eight key devices in my home setting. The diagrammatic representation of Internet of Things infrastructure in my home setting can be shown as:

Amazon Echo is the smart speaker that can understand voiced controlled signal.  Not only this, this is also capable of telling weather forecasts, reading audio books, give news, can message or call anyone. It is integrated with Uber, Domino’s (Guarda & Leon, 2017). It can also integrate with Fans, thermostats, locks, water sprinklers, Philips Hue, Samsung smart devices, Google apps.

I have a Honeywell thermostat that I used to keep the temperature controlled. It will also detect the quality of air and purifies it from time to time. Also, areas that are not used or room not occupied with any occupants will not be heated or cooled

I used a Finolex water sprinkler. What more is that that product uses forecasts, humidity, precipitations, sun exposure into accounts before watering the right amount of water and thus can save the water and water bills. Also, this product integrates well with most of the Google, Nest and Amazon products.

Amazon Echo

I have a Samsung microwave that has all the common features and modes like induction, convection, etc. One other feature is that one can just scan the QR code of the food item and put in the microwave and microwave will take rest of the instructions itself by connecting to the Internet. Another interesting feature is it can send you message as well as capable of sending tweet when the product is ready to be served (Hassanalieragh & Page, 2015).

I have Philips smart light system that can be controlled with a mobile application. Apart from it, based on the lights from natural sources or other sources not connected from internet, these devices can adjust their intensity resulting in power saving. Also, these lights are very smart and provide you with different color combinations experiences and you must input your mood into the app. 

There is technology even built in the toothbrushes and these smart tooth brushes are capable of telling your performance about brushing on your mobile phone whether you did enough and cover all the areas of your mouth or if there is any neglected area. These brushed are also capable of doing a basic dental health check if any tooth is having plaque or notify in case of any issues (Roman & Zhou, 2013). This timely reporting of problems can save from complete dental treatments.

I have Apple watch. It is one of the example of wearing technology using which you can make calls, read your messages and many more. They are also fitness devices built in them that can constantly monitor your blood oxygen levels, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature and provide you a lot of information about your workout (Swan, 2012).

The issues associated with each of the device can be discussed as:

Issues	Comments
Usage	There could be a usage issue when any update comes in. Amazon Echo can have new software update that the user may not be aware of (Gubbi & Buyya, 2013).
Control	There could be control issue for the users who do not have any specific profile created for the use of the product.
Connectivity	There could be connectivity issues only in the cases when Internet is not good as availability of high speed Internet is a pre-requisite for device to work (Ortiz & Hussein, 2014).
Security	There could be security issue if the software of Amazon Echo is not up to date
Privacy	There could be privacy issue as the use of Amazon Echo needs access to certain personal information.

Issues	Comments
Usage	There is not much of the usage issue as it is very easy to operate thermostat
Control	There could be control issue if the thermostat is not able to work in an automated manner.
Connectivity	There could be connectivity issues only in the cases when Internet is not good as availability of high speed Internet is a pre-requisite for device to work (Diaz & Martin, 2016).
Security	There could be security issue if the application for thermostat is not updated (Singh & Tripathi, 2014).
Privacy	There could be privacy issue only for the users who have developed their profile for the use of thermostat

Issues	Comments
Usage	There could be a usage issue as I would often set the timer in the sprinkler. There could be usage issue if automated timer is not working
Control	There could be control issue for the users who do not have any specific profile created for the use of the product (Miorandi & Sicari, 2012).
Connectivity	There could be connectivity issues if Internet is not adequate. However, the good thing with this device is that it needs less Internet bandwidth
Security	There is not much of the data security issue as there is no need to store the data in the database of sprinkler
Privacy	There is not much of the data privacy issue as there is no need to store the data in the database of sprinkler

Issues	Comments
Usage	There is not much of the usage issue as the user interface does not change
Control	There is not any serious control issue as such
Connectivity	There are not much of connectivity issues as Microwave can be operated manually without any Internet also.
Security	There could be data security issue only for the users who have created the profile
Privacy	There could be privacy issue only when the stored data is leaked

Issues	Comments
Usage	The smart lighting systems are probably easiest to use without any usage issue.
Control	It is relatively easy to control the smart light system
Connectivity	The connection to light system requires less Internet bandwidth
Security	There could be security issue if the mobile application is not updated
Privacy	There could be privacy issue only when different family members have different profiles to control the light system (Jia & Feng, 2012)

Issues	Comments
Usage	It is possibly the easiest of all the devices and does not have much of the usage issues.
Control	Not much of control issues either
Connectivity	The good thing with this device is that it can be used manual also.
Security	Not much of the security issue
Privacy	Not much of the privacy issues

Issues	Comments
Usage	There could serious usage issues if the device is lost and gets in the hand fo some hacker
Control	Not much of control issues on smart watch (Stankovic, 2014). However, it is important that user should be educated with all the functions.
Connectivity	Yes, due to dependency on Internet
Security	Yes because of mobile app vulnerability
Privacy	Yes is user has created a profile

Issues	Comments
Usage	There can be usage issue if the app is not updated and different users try to access to lock system at the same time
Control	There can be control issues if different users try to control the lock system at the same time
Connectivity	Yes, due to dependency on Internet  (Borgia, 2014).
Security	Yes because of mobile app vulnerability
Privacy	Yes, if user has created a profile

With technology, there are certain solutions to the above problems. The first and the very basic common solution to above problems is that the mobile application that governs these devices should be updated. There could be mobile application on Android or iOS. It is recommended that the application should be updated so that the chances of vulnerability is minimized. The second basic solution is the use of password. It is suggested that users should have strong passwords to protect the respective apps. In fact, one of the advancements in technology is to go beyond the normal passwords and use the human touch points like finger points for access control. The way IOT devices work is that they will constantly watch for instructions from the other connected devices. Even if one wrong device used by the attacker in the system has the potential of causing damage to all the other devices. Therefore, it is important that the application and interface of all the mobile application should be protected separately.

References

Borgia, E. (2014). The Internet of Things vision: Key features, applications and open issues. Computer Communications, 54, 1-31.

Diaz, M., Martín, C., & Rubio, B. (2016). State-of-the-art, challenges, and open issues in the integration of Internet of things and cloud computing. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 67, 99-117.

Feki, M. A., Kawsar, F., Boussard, M., & Trappeniers, L. (2013). The internet of things: the next technological revolution. Computer, 46(2), 24-25.

Guarda, T., Leon, M., Augusto, M. F., Haz, L., de la Cruz, M., Orozco, W., & Alvarez, J. (2017, June). Internet of Things challenges. In Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2017 12th Iberian Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE.

Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future generation computer systems, 29(7), 1645-1660.

Hassanalieragh, M., Page, A., Soyata, T., Sharma, G., Aktas, M., Mateos, G., … & Andreescu, S. (2015, June). Health monitoring and management using Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensing with cloud-based processing: Opportunities and challenges. In Services Computing (SCC), 2015 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 285-292). IEEE.

Jia, X., Feng, Q., Fan, T., & Lei, Q. (2012, April). RFID technology and its applications in Internet of Things (IoT). In Consumer Electronics, Communications and Networks (CECNet), 2012 2nd International Conference on (pp. 1282-1285). IEEE.

Miorandi, D., Sicari, S., De Pellegrini, F., & Chlamtac, I. (2012). Internet of things: Vision, applications and research challenges. Ad Hoc Networks, 10(7), 1497-1516.

Ortiz, A. M., Hussein, D., Park, S., Han, S. N., & Crespi, N. (2014). The cluster between internet of things and social networks: Review and research challenges. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 1(3), 206-215.

Roman, R., Zhou, J., & Lopez, J. (2013). On the features and challenges of security and privacy in distributed internet of things. Computer Networks, 57(10), 2266-2279.

Singh, D., Tripathi, G., & Jara, A. J. (2014, March). A survey of Internet-of-Things: Future vision, architecture, challenges and services. In Internet of things (WF-IoT), 2014 IEEE world forum on (pp. 287-292). IEEE.

Stankovic, J. A. (2014). Research directions for the internet of things. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, 1(1), 3-9