The Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing the world. But what is its history?

To put it simply, theIoT (IoT) is the network composed of connected devices. It uses the Internet to share data and most of the devices we use today can be connected: smartphones, fitness wearables, motion sensors, cars, smart home appliances and much more. This is the present (and probably the future), but what are the steps that have led to the Internet of Things that is exploding today?

The first land telegraph line was developed in the 1830s and 1840s. It provided direct communication and inspired the development of similar and derivative technologies.

The first wireless voice transmission took place on June 3, 1900, via a radio system, pushing the boundaries of innovation. This vital component of the future IoT environment was complemented by the advent of computers in the 1950s. Thus, by the second half of the XNUMXth century, the fundamental elements that would enable the development of the Internet of Things were in place. Here is a timeline of the relatively recent events that would precipitate the birth of the IoT and its expansion.

1982

Students at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh invent a Coca-Cola vending machine connected to ARPANET (the ancestor of the Internet). Four students from the School of Computer Science install sensors in a drinks machine. These count how many bottles of Coke are in each row and for how long. If a bottle is left in the machine for a long time, it is identified as "cold". All this data is then made available to customers remotely via a digital interface. This experiment has inspired many inventors around the world to create their own connected devices.

1989

Tim Berners-Lee launches the project that will become the web, the Internet that we know today. It started out as a packet switching network, growing and developing.

At the same time, a satellite geopositioning system continues to develop in the United States, the famous Global Positioning System or GPS. This system will prove very important for the development of the Internet of Things.

It was from this moment that inventors had all the essential elements for creating connected or even interconnected devices. And the first examples quickly saw the light of day!

1990

At an exhibition, a certain John Romkey presents a toaster connected to the Internet. This toaster is considered to be the first device in the history of IoT. It was connected to a computer via TCP/IP protocol.

1993

XCoffee is created at the University of Cambridge's computer lab.  Two (slightly lazy) academics working in the Trojan room of the lab decided to connect a camera controlled by a server application. This observed the coffee maker and took pictures of it several times per minute. The pictures were then sent to a client application and allowed the user to be informed about the coffee maker's fill level!

1994

« One of the first cameras on the WWW" Steve Mann creates a wearable camera that connects to the Internet. The WearCam was an “experiment in connectivity” – it transferred captured images to a computer via the Internet. It’s an evolution of the wearable camera he’s been working on since the early 80s. And it’s sort of the ancestor of Google Glass. Incidentally, you may remember Steve Mann, who was attacked in 2012 by employees of the McDonald's on the Champs Elysées who did not appreciate the device too much !

1997

In October, the first International Symposium on Portable Computers was held. Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Georgia Tech co-hosted this event to discuss the performance potential of wearable computers, input mechanisms, communication capabilities…

1998

Creation of IPv6. This is the last vital element to the functionality of the IoT. The interest of this protocol is that it considerably increases the number of available IP addresses. Before its creation, it was not possible to imagine a strong growth of the IoT because of a too limited number of IP addresses. Each object having its own IP address, it was therefore necessary to solve this problem, this is what the IPv6 protocol does!

The following year was one of the most booming years for technology, and we will pay more attention to it. In fact, it was the year that the term “Internet of Things” was coined:

1999

Kevin Ashton introduces the term “Internet of Things”. A researcher at MIT, he uses the term in a presentation for the Procter and Gamble company. At the time, it was called the "embedded Internet," which didn't quite describe the concept. In this presentation, he makes the connection between RFID technologies and the Internet, which greatly impressed his audience because of the potential for innovation.

MIT launches Auto-ID labs. Later that year, Kevin Ashton, David Brock and Sanjay Sharma worked on Ashton's ideas about RFID connectivity. To do this, they created the Auto-ID Labs – a network of academic research labs, whose goal was to develop new technologies and implement them in the field of commerce. As a result, they participated in the development of an RFID identification system – Electronic Product Code (EPC), to replace barcodes. The Electronic Product Code can provide any object in the world with identification with a unique code. The EPC is a very good example of the ability of the IoT to connect physical objects to a heterogeneous network using sensors and other wireless communication means.

People are starting to think about the future of IoT. Tech gurus, innovators, engineers and influencers are starting to make predictions about a future in which the Internet of Things will play a major role. American sociologist Neil Gross writes in Business Week: “….the planet Earth will don an electronic skin. It will use the Internet as a scaffolding to support and transmit its sensations. This skin is already being sewn. It consists of millions of embedded electronic measuring devices: thermostats, pressure gauges, pollution detectors, cameras, microphones, glucose sensors, electrocardiograms, electroencephalographs…” The 21st century will be the century of connected objects!

2000

LG announces a new product: the Internet Digital DIOS – the first refrigerator connected to the Internet. Unfortunately, it was a commercial failure and the product even became a meme on the web. Although the failure was bitter, particularly due to a price considered too high, it will not be the last connected refrigerator!

2004

The term Internet of Things is becoming popular! Major publishers, newspapers and magazines are starting to mention IoT in their articles. For example, the Boston Globe published an article titled: “ The Internet of Things. Startups Embrace the Next Big Thing: Tiny Networked Chips", dated October 25, 2004. The article talks about a warehouse equipped with 600 wireless radio chips. It was an IoT network, intended to replace wired controllers and provide space for future advanced applications, such as remote monitoring software. The future is here: these networks will be everywhere, in warehouses, homes, stores...

Beyond magazines, we are beginning to find the first books dedicated to the Internet of Things.

RFID is gaining popularity. American retailer Walmart requires its top 100 suppliers to place RFID tags on cartons and pallets by 2005. Walmart replaces barcodes with RFID-based EPC codes to improve supply chain management. Suppliers are a bit reluctant about the cost of EPC tags and see no benefit in them. But in the end, this technology has reduced cargo theft and annual labor requirements. Today, EPC is one of the global standards, connecting billions of "things" together around the world.

2005

French company Violet launches the Nabaztag. Nabaztag is a kind of small robot intended for the general public. It can connect to the Internet via WiFi to retrieve the weather, news and stock prices… and read them to its owner. This rabbit-shaped device showed the world how the Internet of Things can be integrated into everyday life. Nabaztag has been updated three times in its history and, in 2015, its servers and customer service were cut off because its technology was outdated.

2008

First International Conference on the Internet of Things (IoT 2008). This is the first conference of its kind to take place. It is taking place in Zurich, Switzerland. The program includes several themes on the development of the Internet of Things: short-range wireless communications, real-time localization, sensor networks, etc.

More “things” are connected to the Internet than peopleLooking back, 2008 is now considered the year it all started thanks to the boom in connected objects.

2009

Google begins testing self-driving cars. The first car to drive autonomously was a Toyota Prius. It was equipped with sensors capable of detecting pedestrians, cyclists, road works and other remarkable objects. Even then, its on-board software was powerful enough to predict the behavior of all road users.

Medical device company St Jude Medical is moving into IoT for healthcare. It is launching a wireless USB adapter that can receive data from a patient's heart implant and securely transfer it to doctors via cellular networks.

2010

China embraces IoT revolution, invests in industry. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao decides to pay special attention to IoT after talking with researchers. He considers the Internet of Things as an ideal technology to be implemented in the country's high-tech industries. Remote management and identification of different objects are perfect technologies for the development of infrastructure and services in China. This is the first time that IoT is recognized at the government level. Today, China believes it can earn more than 155 billion euros from this market by 2020.

Nest Company begins manufacturing smart home equipment. Former Apple engineers decide to create a startup born from the idea that thermostats were not meeting consumers' needs. Their first product, Nest Learning, is a thermostat that can learn users' habits and use them to optimize heating settings. It is the first IoT thermostat powered by the machine learning algorithm .

2011

World IPv6 Day. The event is organized by Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Akamai Technologies and Limelight Networks. The main idea of ​​the event is to motivate Internet Service Providers, web hosts and other industry players to prepare for the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, as the amount of available IPv4 starts to drastically decrease. More than 400 speakers, including representatives from search engines, social networks and content distributors, are participating in the event.

The Internet of Things is part of Gartner's "Hype Cycle," an annually updated chart showing trending (or emerging) technologies. According to Gartner, IoT will be adopted massively between 2016 and 2021.

2013

Google announces the launch of smart glasses: Google Glass. Despite promising technology and enormous potential in many sectors of activity, their high price and a lack of appeal for developers who are abandoning the platform do not allow Google glasses to meet the expected success!

The widespread adoption of connected devices for individuals began in 2014. The number of start-ups and high-tech companies interested in connected objects continues to increase, fueling the market with increasingly intelligent and powerful hardware and software.

2014

The number of mobile devices, wearables and other connected gadgets exceeds the number of humans on the planet. There were then 7,2 billion connected objects and statistics showed that they multiplied 5 times faster than humans.

Google absorbs Nest company. Google is keenly interested in the potential of the Internet of Things and in particular in the connected home. The acquisition of Nest allows it to invest in the future of IoT in the home and completes its hardware division. Google retains the Nest brand.

Google's self-driving car is making headlines. The autonomous car is also a subject that interests Google a lot. The web giant is working in particular on sensors, an essential element of these cars, and on the software that allows them to function. We will have to wait another year for a first test to be carried out in real conditions on the roads of Austin, Texas.

Novartis partners with Google to create contact lenses that measure blood sugar. These lenses, which are supposed to look like regular lenses, are equipped with a tiny chip. Their goal: to measure glucose levels using a non-invasive method, analyzing the composition of tears... They should help improve the quality of life of diabetics. Unfortunately, analyzing the composition of tears is less reliable than blood analysis.

Tech giants form consortium to develop industry standards for IoT. Raising the issue of interoperability of IoT devices, processes, machines and humans, Intel, Cisco, IBM, GE, AT&T are joining forces. The consortium is open to any company that wants to join.

Amazon launches Echo, a smart speaker. Echo is capable of playing audiobooks, setting alarms, writing ToDo lists and all sorts of other tasks. The device has enjoyed some success and new generations have since emerged. Unlike Nabaztag, Amazon Echo is regularly improved to meet market demands.

Samsung acquires home automation startup SmartThing.  SmartThing is now an essential link in all of Samsung's IoT and home automation projects.

2015

Mattel produces IoT-enabled toys. To ride the IoT wave, Mattel is producing a Barbie with an integrated WiFi module and a dollhouse with home automation features (voice commands, presence detector, etc.). The Internet of Things is making its way into children's homes!

Establishment of Global Standards Initiative on the Internet of Things. The key idea of ​​the event is to create a unified approach to the development of IoT technical standards, thereby contributing to the adoption of the technology on a global scale.

2016

General Motors invests in Lyft to create a network of autonomous cars. The auto giant spent $500 million and announced plans to create a ride-sharing service. The company believed that autonomous vehicles would first develop as shared vehicles.

Cisco acquires Jasper, a platform for managing IoT services. Led by Cisco, Jasper enabled enterprises to launch, manage and monetize their IoT services on a cloud platform.

Apple presents its HomeKit products at the famous Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. HomeKit is a proprietary platform that provides developers with comprehensive tools for developing software for smart home appliances. Apple has made it easier to manage connected objects with Siri: wall outlets, light switches are now controlled by voice.

Google launches Google Home. After Amazon Echo, the market for voice-activated assistants is finally being born. Google Home allows the integration of third-party services, offering users a wide range of interaction. The development of this device began with the intention of competing with Amazon Echo.

The first virus in the history of IoT is born. This is the price of success! The Mirai virus is very simple. Manufacturers have the unfortunate tendency to set default passwords for their devices, and sometimes users forget to change them. Mirai collects the default credentials and hacks devices that have not had their password changed. Then, it uses the devices to perform DDoS attacks on popular websites.

2017

Tech giants are expanding their offerings dedicated to the Internet of Things. For example:

• Microsoft launches Azure IoT Edge to enable the large-scale use of cloud services for connected devices, even when they are not connected to the cloud.
• Amazon provides advanced security and device management features.
• Google launches Cloud IoT Core, a service that makes it easier to connect and manage connected devices.

Governments around the world are starting to think about IoT security. Following a series of breaches that affected various companies, governments have begun to consider developing laws aimed at making IoT environments more secure.

Cryptocurrencies are moving towards IoT. With the help of blockchain, devices can exchange smart contracts in a secure environment. To help with the adoption of blockchain and contribute to securing the IoT, a special organization was created: the “ Trusted IoT Alliance". In addition, a number of cryptocurrencies have been developed based on IoT: IoT Coin, IOTA, IoT Chain.

2018

California passes law to strengthen IoT security. This law aims to ban default passwords on connected objects. At the very least, users will be forced to change the password the first time they use it.

What comes next?

The Internet of Things revolution is set to continue at full speed:

• The global IoT market is expected to reach €7 trillion by 800.
• The number of IoT devices will reach 36 billion by 2021.
• IoT security spending to reach $2,7 billion by 2021.

And, of course, hackers will continue to use IoT devices to perform DDoS attacks!

Artificial intelligence is also considered the next big thing in IoT, along with blockchain, which is already popular but will continue to grow.

In short, let's watch this intriguing field evolve and transform our way of life... who knows what's in store.

Article updated on January 7, 2025 by Byothe