Let me share the answers I got from the major of Internet of Things (to be honest, I have made a lot of products, but I can't recite all the OSI seven-layer protocols at present), hoping to give some help to the subject.
The Internet of Things is actually an extension of the Internet. The terminal of the Internet is a computer (PC, server). All the programs we run are nothing more than data processing and data transmission in computers and networks, and other terminals (hardware) are not involved except computers.
The essence of the Internet of Things is the Internet, but the terminal is no longer a computer (PC, server), but an embedded computer system and its supporting sensors. This is the inevitable result of the development of computer science and technology. Computers serving human beings present various forms, such as wearable devices, environmental monitoring devices, virtual reality devices and so on. As long as hardware or products are connected to the Internet and data interaction occurs, it is called the Internet of Things.
However, the concept of the Internet of Things is currently being overheated. I started learning embedded technology about ten years ago. At that time, there were no tall words such as Internet of Things and intelligent hardware. I believe that at that time, many seniors studied MCU programming like me, and everyone used "MCU" to summarize this industry. Around 20 12, a large amount of hot money poured out of the housing market and invested in the capital market. At this time, a wave of tall words hit. Server technology is called "cloud", single chip microcomputer is called "intelligent hardware", network single chip microcomputer application is called "Internet of Things", and vehicle single chip microcomputer application is called "Internet of Vehicles". . . Ha ha. This phenomenon is the necessity of commercial progress, and we can only use it to change our appearance. Who is the boss who pays the salary? Ha ha.
However, due to technical bottlenecks, the development of the Internet of Things can't actually break out like the Internet. Or to put it in a more popular way, have you found that many applications of the Internet of Things are actually icing on the cake, and the demand is not so strong, which is the fundamental reason why many intelligent hardware are not sold very well; It is precisely because of the demand that there will be no continuous investment in business like Didi taxi, and it will definitely inhibit the further development of technology.
By this year, this investment boom has cooled down a lot, but in this boom, many changes have taken place in our society. First of all, there are more and more people paying attention to the Internet of Things and more and more practitioners. Moreover, many universities have also set up related courses, and the government has also introduced industry encouragement policies. As we said before, the concept of the Internet of Things has been overheated, so there are two kinds of people who are most confused in the big group of the Internet of Things. One is entrepreneurs who focus on the Internet of Things, and the other is students majoring in the Internet of Things. I used to belong to the first category.
The Internet of Things has a broad technical prospect. In recent years, some air purifier products, wearable devices and home environment monitoring devices listed on the market are unprecedented in the past and are serving the public under the current consumption background. There will be more new devices in the future, which is the inevitable result of the development of Internet of Things technology. Therefore, it is very promising to devote to the technical research and development of the Internet of Things.
However, the business prospect of the Internet of Things is complicated, especially for entrepreneurs, which is not good news. Since the purpose of starting a business is definitely to make money, however, looking at human society, the most profitable things are actually classified into just a few. First, resources, then tools to obtain resources, and information. Every enterprise, if it wants to live well, has only one goal, which is monopoly. However, most resources in society are monopolized by large enterprises, and small enterprises often participate in low-threshold industries related to people's livelihood, with fierce competition and hard work to make money. Back to the computer industry, although the computer industry is highly open, the existence of monopoly is no less than other industries. Companies such as Intel and ARM basically monopolized the processor industry. Microsoft, Google (Android) and Apple monopolized the operating system. Internet of Things is an emerging market. Although the capacity is not large at present, every household is staring. For entrepreneurs, it is impossible to create a monopoly and it is difficult to survive. Most entrepreneurs are small companies. No matter how awesome your technology is, once there is a market, large companies can quickly invest several times your capital, imitate you, surpass you and crush you in a very short time. As a small company, you can't invest as much money and influence as a big company, so no matter how good the product is, it may not sell well. This is a fact that every technology entrepreneur has to face.
It is precisely because of the above pressure that many entrepreneurs are confused. I have been working in the Internet of Things industry for four years, so I have met many colleagues, most of whom are entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs are very diligent, passionate about their ideas and often dare to stick to them. However, these are useless. Most entrepreneurs have not come to this day, because investors' money will always burn out.
I think entrepreneurs in the Internet of Things industry should handle two problems well if they want to succeed. First of all, we must realize that the computer industry wants to break through the monopoly. For large enterprises, it is technology accumulation. However, for individuals or small teams, the only way is to narrow the user base. In other words, we should focus on one field and one technology to solve a problem. If you say that your customers are everyone in the public, then basically your things can't be sold. But if your customer is a Jetta owner and is equipped with an electronic navigation system, your product will sell better. The advantage of narrowing the user base is that large enterprises will not come to grab food from you, and you can easily find your customers accurately and persuade them to buy your things. Secondly, individuals or small teams should not lose money at any time, otherwise you will eventually find it difficult to persist. The best state is that everyone has a full-time job (income), but is relatively idle. In this case, it is often easy to succeed (in the end, the team or project is acquired by a large company, achieving financial freedom, or rising in status).
For those who research and develop in the direction of Internet of Things in large enterprises, there is naturally no need to worry about income, but in many cases, they may have to accept the task assigned by their superiors. As practitioners of Internet of Things technology, we should realize that there are still many aspects of technology in this industry that need to be broken through. I personally show some technologies that need to be broken through as follows. I hope that R&D personnel in the direction of Internet of Things can do some technical accumulation in their spare time:
1. At present, domestic low-power network technologies are not well done, including zigbee, which is actually an exaggeration.
2. There is actually a lot of space for sensors and sensor input parts. The reason why people are smart has a lot to do with their hands, eyes, mouth, nose and ears. However, none of the hands, eyes, nose and ears of a computer can compare with people. Because it is difficult for individuals to accumulate in chip technology, they can only do algorithms. For visual recognition technology, all fields have great potential, and they can learn and accumulate.
3. Tools to reduce the difficulty of research and development can be concerned. At present, the Internet of Things is still in the stage of teaching and promotion, and tools that can quickly help practitioners improve R&D efficiency can be studied and accumulated. (That's what I do)
4. We can study the voice dialogue algorithm in a specific environment. At present, almost all speech recognition is just speech to text, and then the computer performs the task through lexical analysis, which basically can't do contextual dialogue. It is estimated that Apple and Google abroad, Iflytek, Tencent and Baidu in China are all studying voice conversations in non-specific environments, and personal technicians are basically unnecessary and have no chance. However, in a certain environment (such as the environment of automatic navigation, people's instructions will only focus on the theme of "navigation"), voice dialogue is a very efficient input and output tool, which is worth studying and accumulating by individuals.
After talking about entrepreneurs, let's talk about learners majoring in Internet of Things in major universities.
In fact, I personally don't recommend the Internet of Things major for undergraduate students, because the Internet of Things major is not a basic subject. The incompetent school opened by undergraduate students is just a cover, which will pit many people. A school with a little ability cannot expect students to learn anything under the current teaching framework. The reason is that the coverage of the Internet of Things is too wide, so let's list it:
1. Digital, analog and single-chip programming technology: To be an Internet of Things product, at least, you can read the circuit board. You have to be able to write a few lines of code for the single chip microcomputer and turn on a running light or something. You know, this used to be something I had to learn for four years as an automation major. The circuit board is well drawn, even in inland provincial capital cities, the monthly salary is tens of thousands, and the single chip microcomputer is well written, so is the monthly salary. What is the cover of the Internet of Things?
2. Network technology: It is not enough to program the single chip microcomputer. You have to be able to access the single-chip computer in the Internet cafe, otherwise it's called the Internet of Things. Since surfing the Internet is the simplest "client-server" mode, you should put at least one server in the cloud. Not to mention the server program, you have to write it yourself. If you go to Alibaba Cloud to buy a server and bind the domain name, it is estimated that it will take a week. Writing server programs is also an undergraduate major, at least VC should learn (fashion java). You know both PC and MCU, so you are a full-stack engineer. Isn't this salary higher?
3. Wireless technology: For many products, a single microcontroller is not enough. You have to integrate multiple microcontrollers, and then multiple microcontrollers are networked with each other, which involves networking. With wifi, the power consumption is too high. With zigbee, the optical protocol will kill you. With Bluetooth, human architecture has never been so complete. Then you have to write it yourself. If you can write everything, from drivers to network protocols, there will be no problem. What software architecture can't you complete?
4. Sensor technology: At present, many sensors are digital, so it is not difficult to throw out the values directly. The single chip microcomputer can be used as long as it is connected. But the problem is that there are many, so there are temperature sensors to measure temperature; Measuring light, with optical sensor; Measuring air, with air quality sensor; There are also acceleration sensors, heart rate sensors, color sensors and decibel sensors. . . The university is only four years old, and it is estimated that it will take three years to learn single-chip programming. Do you think you can finish some in the remaining time?
5. Terminal Technology (App): Internet of Things Internet of Things, where do you put users? You always throw an App to users to see the product status, so you have to learn how to do it. You have to learn both iOS and Android, otherwise the number of users will be reduced by half, hehe.
Therefore, the Internet of Things major offered by undergraduate students is really a pit. Obviously, the school can't teach them all. Even if the school is willing to teach, students can't learn. Give some feasible suggestions:
1. Clear and correct technical concept, the Internet of Things is an industry, not a profession. If you learn any technology of the Internet of Things well, you can be independent and realize personal value accumulation quickly (with great benefits). If you covet more and faster, it will do you no good except bring endless disappointment and blow.
2. Clear the correct development direction. The Internet of Things involves software and hardware, Internet, App and other fields. As an individual, it can only be so. If you are doing hardware, you need to learn many electrical modules, application circuits, wiring boards, sensor characteristics and so on. If you work in software and have a clear direction, it is generally recommended that you learn MCU programming well, be familiar with one or two sensors or applications, and make one or two small products. After graduation, you can gradually transition, learn to cooperate with other engineers, learn network applications, and practice more works.
3. Practice is greater than theory. To learn Internet of Things or embedded systems, you must be diligent and produce more works. More works can not only increase technical ability, understand the architecture of the Internet of Things, but also improve self-confidence. Most of the differences between people are in education, and whether education is successful or not, confidence is a very important evaluation rule. Of course, because the Internet of Things is generally a system product, it is suggested that learners can make products based on a mature framework, so it is easy to successfully make a complete product. You can use our cool IOT system, which is also one of the options.
4. Try not to go to a startup after graduation, but startups rarely recruit fresh graduates. Be sure to go to the core team of medium-sized enterprises or large enterprises, even if it is a handyman. No matter whether you plan to do marketing or technology in the future, you must remember to find a way to enter the core R&D team of the enterprise when you graduate. If a big company can't enter, it will enter a smaller one, and if it can't enter, it will be smaller. Some people may ask, people don't necessarily want me. Yes, people don't necessarily want you. The Internet of Things works you did during your undergraduate period are just a stepping stone.
After getting the job, don't rush for success, concentrate on it, and follow the technical director of the team to do the technology. Do whatever you have, cultivate applications in different fields as much as possible, and have more solid and reliable technical friends. Three or five years later, one day, you will find that you have the skills and team to make any product, and your road will be broadened.
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All right, it's advertising time. Let's talk about the project I have been working on for the past two years:
Cool Internet of Things system is an open source Internet of Things system, which natively supports the control of common household appliances in the form of host+device, and provides a wireless Internet of Things module (Wana module) that can be embedded in devices for developers, who can quickly realize their ideas based on Wana module. Without programming, the eight IO of Vana module can be configured in various ways, such as digital input and output, keys, analog sampling (ADC), PWM, etc. , greatly reducing the entry threshold of equipment.
As the Cool Enjoy Internet of Things system is an open source system, learners can learn the architecture of the Internet of Things with the help of the Cool Enjoy Internet of Things system, and at the same time, they can also see the implementation code and many application cases of the Cool Enjoy Internet of Things system, so as to improve their understanding of the Internet of Things with the highest efficiency.
Case:
Plant cultivation assistant (no programming case)
Two-way switch, intelligent plug (no programming case)
Scene panel (no programming case)
LED dimmer (non-programming)
Air quality monitor (open source case)
Supplement: (20 16.4.20)
I didn't want to be photographed at first, but some critics said that these works I made were not connected to the internet at all, so I sent some photos to hit my face, hehe.
Excuse me. All devices in the system can be viewed and controlled remotely through the application. Why not the Internet of Things?
Excuse me. All devices in the system can be separated from the mobile phone, which are interrelated and triggered by the network. Why not the Internet of Things?
Yes, it's you, the one who let me read the newspaper! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Well, I hope that many Internet of Things practitioners and beginners will guard against arrogance and rashness, work hard to accumulate and realize the Chinese dream! hahahaha