IoT or the Internet of Things is a trending topic today and can be heard on the lips of every techie. It is a common thing that many individuals are using it and their entire day-to-day life is dependent on it.
We are living in the internet era, where everything is becoming digitized. Connected devices are the thing of today and the future, and we are exploring the Internet of Things and how they are impacting our lives. Around 20 billion connected devices are being used, and it is expected to rise to 50 billion by the end of this year.
Zillions of devices are interconnected in the IoT ecosystem, and surprisingly we as human beings never realized that these devices virtually surround us in inter-human or machine-to-machine interaction.
Statista reports that the installed base of active IoT connected devices is forecast to reach 21.5 billion units by the year 2025. Apart from all the path-breaking discoveries, IoT with its own set of pros and cons.
As consumers, many of us use IoT devices. Do you have a body-worn fitness monitor like a Fitbit or a voice-activated personal assistant like an Amazon Echo or Google Home? These are examples of IoT devices. Others are connected cars, kitchen appliances, thermostats, door locks, and security cameras.
Examples for business include asset tracking devices, electronic logging devices, traffic sensors, and light switches.
1. Easy Access
IoT can be put to many uses, but most of its use cases occur in real-time. All you need is a smartphone with internet connectivity. These two, when paired up together, make you and your life smarter.’
When your refrigerator can identify that you have run out of milk and contact the nearest supermarket to order the same quantity that you usually used to have, IOT enabled devices will inform you by sending a text on your phone that you are running out of milk.
Let’s suppose, your alarm rings at six o’clock in the morning and you being lazy switched it off. The moment, you will switch off your alarm, it will connect with the geyser and heat the water at the temperature you prefer. At the same time, it will instruct the coffee maker to start brewing the coffee; all without waking you up.
2. Wireless technology turns cities into Smart Cities
To ensure that the electricity is not wasted, IoT-enabled devices manage street lights and automates everything. It automatically switches off street lights in daylight and switches them on during the onset of darkness.
With the help of IoT devices, you can monitor the vibrations of buildings, bridges, monuments in case they are overloaded. These are the perfect examples of IoT in smart cities. Hospitals and schools can control noise pollution around them and maintain peace all around.
3. Eases Communication
IoT encourages Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication (communication between devices) and allows you to control and automate taxes daily.
Cisco calculates that machine-to-machine connections supporting IoT applications account for more than half of the total 27.1 billion devices and connections.
4. Saves Money Pros and Cons of Internet of Things
A report by DHL states that IOT will help a business save $1.2 trillion in productivity costs alone. Let’s see how it works. With IoT, electronic appliances effectively communicate with each other, thereby conserving and saving cost and energy.
By allowing the data to be shared and communicated between electronic devices and then translating it into our required way, IoT is making our systems efficient.
5. Business Benefits
IoT will help you explore new business opportunities with samples of data from your top customers. It collects data from the network and uses advanced analytics to uncover business insights and opportunities.
As an entrepreneur, you can analyze the data collected by the IoT devices to predict what your customers need. This will help you identify the areas of new work and hence new revenue streams.
6 . Increased Productivity
Productivity plays a key role in the profitability of any business. IoT offers just-in-time training for the employees, improves labor efficiency, and also reduces the mismatch of skills while increasing organizational productivity. Eventually, we end up with much more time on our hands.
While these were benefits of IoT, you must put your eye on the cons of IoT as well and see how they are beneficial in the real world.
7.Automation
Every business can increase its profitability with the help of automation along with reducing production cost. Since automation is precise and repeatable, it ensures that there is uniformity is product manufacturing. Overall, automation helps to improve the quality of service and control day-to-day tasks without human intervention.
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Complexity
With IoT, there are chances of failure. Suppose, you and your friend got a message that the milk packet kept in your fridge has expired. So, in this case, both of you will purchase a milk packet. There will be two packets which will result in a wastage of money.
This makes the entire process a bit complicated. To make this process a bit easy, it would be a wise option that you register or connect only one of your numbers with the IoT-enabled device.
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Compatibility
There are millions and billions of device that are connected with each other in the IoT ecosystem; however, all the devices are built by different manufacturers which raise the issue of compatibility in tagging and monitoring.
It is hard to convince every manufacturer that they built devices that agree to a common standard. Though Bluetooth can connect different devices, they may come up with compatibility issues even if the IoT devices are ruling the world.
This compatibility issue may force the buyers or users to buy devices from a specific manufacturer which may create a monopoly in the market.
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Privacy or Security
There is a risk of losing privacy in data that is being transmitted through IoT devices. You need to see how well the data is being encrypted. Due to the rapid growth of IoT, it is facing security and privacy issues.
IoT devices connected to your desktop or laptops increase the risk of leaking the customers’ personal information while the data is being collected and transmitted from the IoT device.
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Lesser Employment or Menial Staffs
IoT is expanding across the globe, and this may result in the replacement of monotonous and unsafe jobs firing off unskilled professionals. All of this may create unemployment issues in society.
With IoT, daily activities are getting automated, and naturally, there will be fewer requirements for human resources and less educated staff. Hence, mastering new ways of working will increase or stable the chances of a person’s employability.
Technology Takes Control of Life
IoT has impacted the lives of almost every individual in every way possible. Be it the older or even, the younger generation, everyone is addicted to technology for their day to day minute activities.
With the help of IoT, this dependency will become even more in daily routines. No application is free from fault, and there are some hitches in each technical application. Relying on IoT devices may create trouble in case of a non-working or crash of an IoT infrastructure.
Having discussed the IoT and its importance in building homes, let’s move forward to ways you can reduce your construction costs!
Despite the financial curveballs 2020 has thrown, demand for housing is strong and many home builders are scrambling to keep pace, especially those coming off of construction shutdowns in their states. The increase in construction projects around the country has led to more demand for raw materials, which has driven up costs for builders. To combat rising construction prices, builders should look for new ways to cut expenses in areas like land and labor.
When starting a new project, making sure your estimates are accurate whilst you’re still in the planning phase is vital. Accuracy is so important during the planning of the project because any mistakes made here will almost certainly come back to bite you during the later stages, as these will likely result in hefty costs later on.
Before scrapping the design entirely, try these cost-saving strategies to see if your current design can be refined to better align with your budget.
Hire an Experienced Architect
If you don’t have any experience or idea of planning or working on a home design, it wouldn’t be ideal for you to take any potential risks with one of your largest assets. The best solution is to hire an expert architect to help you design your dream home. Make sure to communicate all your design requirements to the professional you have hired. Ask for their valuable suggestions to achieve the best possible output.
Your hired designer and contractor should work on the same page. They need to stay in touch and check for all possibilities in terms of cost-cutting techniques. Only one option in terms of architectural design should be agreed upon. The biggest problem of having multiple design options is that you start thinking of ways to spend more to work them out.
Avoid complicated designs
Of course, being a new homeowner could be exciting with all the classy ideas and designs in mind. But at times you will be forced to forget the complicated designs, especially if you are working on a budget. Complicated designs need a lot of material as well as labor and this hugely impacts the costs. Always keep it simple and elegant.
Another strategy for reducing construction costs is to reduce the complexity of your design. Complexity can take many forms: complicated floor plans, bump-outs in the floor plan, angles & curves, tall ceiling heights, complicated trim packages, elaborate landscaping, and decks, etc.
The reason why reducing the complexity of your project helps create a more affordable house is because complexity typically takes more time, and time is money. Labor costs can be expensive so any way you can simplify your design to reduce the amount of time it takes to build will help. A reduced schedule also eliminates the contractor’s fee and overhead because the number of days the job site trailer, site superintendent, and temporary toilet facilities need to be on-site is reduced.
By reducing the number of jogs in your footprint (the number of corners), the easier and quicker it is to construct. It has a ripple effect, too, that can affect many different line items in your budget. Remove a few ins and outs in your footprint saves time in setting formwork for foundations and slabs, in laying out the wall framing, and cutting sheets of sheathing, wall finish, and trim.
Not to mention, the contractor will have less chance of messing something up if you keep the design simple, so it allows for a more efficient building process.
Purchase the materials yourself
In normal circumstances, getting your contractor to do a material purchase for you is advisable. However, when cutting costs is one of your priorities, doing the purchase yourself will save you a significant amount of money. Besides, contractors will hardly bargain on your behalf, and if they do, the difference will most of the time go to their pocket.
Choose the right roofing style
As unbelievable as this may sound, the type of roofing you install on your house will in one way or the other affect the cost. Going overboard with the roof improves the style but at the same time increases the cost. Therefore, in case you want to reduce the cost, you should consider designs like a hipped roof as well as the gabble. Such designs are simple, require minimal labor, and do not consume a lot of materials. The roof is one of the most expensive material and labor line items in your budget. This is why the simpler the roof system, the less expensive it will be. The most inexpensive roof is a simple, single ridgeline with a shallow pitch. More complicated roof systems, called hips and valleys with a steeper pitch, are more visually interesting. But they are also a lot more expensive.
Use Drywall on Interior
Pine paneling on the interior of your ceiling looks great. However, it’s rough twice the cost of drywall—and cedar paneling is even more expensive than pine.
Reducing Square Footage
One way to dramatically reduce costs is to just reduce the square footage of the entire home. Think small and cozy to slash costs. Another smart strategy is to build upward with a two-story design rather than outward, such as with a ranch design.
Avoid Change Orders
Last-minute changes in design or materials are called “change orders” and they can quickly take a toll on your budget. Save these for correcting any serious errors. Always remember: It’s always more cost-effective to make changes during the design phase before concrete is poured and walls are framed. Not only does this make for a more affordable house construction process, it also saves you from investing a lot of time and money upfront on a design that you later realize is over-budget.
Skilled Workers
If you make it your aim to hire staff that is qualified to fit multiple job roles and willing to multitask, your workforce will get far more done with fewer staff members required.
While the process of recruiting such staff will likely take a bit longer, it will definitely be worth it as such workers are invaluable and can save your business both time and money in the long run, which is why it is important to treat your staff accordingly so you retain the talent you have secured.
The construction industry is known to have extremely tight margins, meaning that businesses operating in the industry have to really watch their pennies during projects to make sure that they make a profit.
It’s extremely important to communicate during any construction project, whether you’re planning the project or sourcing materials for it. A lack of communication can cause a range of issues that can come at a cost to your budget.
