The Internet of Things (IoT) is widely presented as a revolutionary technology, touching all aspects of our lives and being accessible to more people than ever before. The reality of the IoT, however, does not fulfill the hype, and we have a sprawling, unconnected pool of resources to choose from. Harnessing these resources is challenging for the general public, for whom they have ultimately been deployed, and adoption is therefore not as widespread and rapid as perhaps anticipated. Many lack the necessary trust in IoT and avoid engaging fully. As a result, its accessibility, availability, and indeed utility is questionable.

This one-of-a-kind paper presents an interesting and unique perspective that centers on the question: “Does the IoT already exist?” A confusing and ambiguous question at first, the authors respond to it by investigating the ways in which IoT technologies are used.

The authors create a crawler to support their research objective of collecting IoT data to characterize the IoT environment. It is through this activity that insights are drawn, and the authors present some particularly interesting and unique concepts. One finding is that the IoT data most frequently accessed relates to air quality and radiation, metrics with environmental properties. Also discussed is the perspective that only a small portion of IoT data changes frequently, and the data that changes does so rapidly. Of particular interest is the investigation of device density internationally, with IoT data collected across Australia, the US, India, and Europe. Using these and other findings, the authors conclude that the IoT does indeed exist.

The authors also draw attention to the fact that the IoT environment is less than perfect. They acknowledge, for example, that collecting and processing the large volume of IoT device data can be costly. Furthermore, raw data expires quickly and relies on other attributes to convey meaning; each data point on its own has little utility. Concepts such as these, which the authors prove to be true, lead many to perceive the IoT as an idea, something that may exist in the future (as opposed to being part of today’s reality). Bridging the gap between these incompatible states of existence will be the responsibility of tomorrow’s regulation. Reliable and effective standardization requires an awareness of IoT, which the paper presents.