History of the IoT

The term IoT can most likely be attributed to Kevin Ashton in 1997 with his work at Proctor and Gamble using RFID tags to manage supply chains. The work brought him to MIT in 1999  where he and a group of like-minded individuals started the Auto-ID center research consortium (for more information, visit http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/kevin-ashton-describes-the-internet-of-things-180953749/). Since then, IoT has taken off from simple RFID tags to an ecosystem and industry that by 2020 will cannibalize, create, or displace five trillion out of one hundred trillion global GDP dollars, or 6% of the world GDP. The concept of things being connected to the Internet up through 2012 was primarily connected smartphones, tablets, PCs, and laptops. Essentially, things that first functioned in all respects as a computer. Since the humble beginnings of the Internet starting with ARPANET in 1969, most of the technologies surrounding the IoT didn't exist. Up to the year 2000, most devices that were associated with the Internet were, as stated, computers of various sizes. The following timeline shows the slow progress in connecting things to the Internet:

Year	Device	Reference
1973	Mario W. Cardullo receives the patent for first RFID tag	US Patent US 3713148 A
1982	Carnegie Mellon internet-connected soda machine	https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~coke/history_long.txt
1989	Internet-connected toaster at Interop '89	IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine (Volume: 6, Issue: 1, Jan. 2017)
1991	HP introduces HP LaserJet IIISi: first Ethernet-connected network printer	http://hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=350
1993	Internet-connected coffee pot at University of Cambridge (first internet-connected camera)	https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/qsf/coffee.html
1996	General Motors OnStar (2001 remote diagnostics)	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OnStar
1998	Bluetooth SIG formed	https://www.bluetooth.com/about-us/our-history
1999	LG Internet Digital DIOS refrigerator	https://www.telecompaper.com/news/lg-unveils-internetready-refrigerator--221266
2000	First instances of Cooltown concept of pervasive computing everywhere: HP Labs, a system of computing and communication technologies that, combined, create a web-connected experience for people, places, and objects	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2AkkuIVV-I
2001	First Bluetooth product launched: KDDI Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone	http://edition.cnn.com/2001/BUSINESS/asia/04/17/tokyo.kddibluetooth/index.html
2005	United Nation's International Telecommunications Union report predicting the rise of IoT for the first time	http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/internetofthings/InternetofThings_summary.pdf
2008	IPSO Alliance formed to promote IP on objects, first IoT-focused alliance	https://www.ipso-alliance.org
2010	The concept of Smart Lighting formed after success in developing solid-state LED light bulbs	https://www.bu.edu/smartlighting/files/2010/01/BobK.pdf
2014	Apple creates iBeacon protocol for beacons	https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202880

 

Certainly, the term IoT has generated a lot of interest and hype. One can easily see that from a buzzword standpoint, the number of patents issued (https://www.uspto.gov) has grown exponentially since 2010. The number of Google searches (https://trends.google.com/trends/) and IEEE peer-reviewed paper publications hit the knee of the curve in 2013:

Analysis of keyword searches for IoT, patents, and technical publications