History

Image via Stuart Miles on FreeDigitalPhotos.Net

According to this timeline published on Forbes.com, the concept of smart objects and "mechanical slaves" has been around since the early 20th century (as written about by Jay B Nash in Spectatoritis in 1932), and the widespread use of barcodes in supermarkets starting in the 1950's could be considered an early predecessor of the Internet of Things.

It wasn't until the 1980's that people actually used technology to connect physical objects to computer systems for monitoring. The object was a Coke machine, and switches in the machine were installed so that the number of bottles in the machine and the temperature of those bottles could be monitored on a remote computer. This was, in the most basic sense, the beginning of the Internet of Things (IoT) as we understand and use it today.

In the 1990's, wearable technology that could wirelessly store information and the ability for machines to communicate with one another started to really shape what the Internet of Things looks like today. By the early 2000's, the term "Internet of Things" had been coined by Chana Schoenberger and Bruce Upbin, and the quest to connect computers to real-world objects began.

Today, we are still just scratching the surface for the potential uses involving IoT. With the potential to give every physical object (and living thing!) a unique identification, we can remotely connect, monitor, and control anything using our electronic devices.