What are IoT Sensors?

Definition

IoT sensors are devices that capture data about physical objects and transmit it to the cloud, hence the “Internet of Things”.  

Why it Matters

While there has been tremendous progress in the last few decades in the realm of bytes - that is, digital information - there hasn’t been as much progress in atoms, or physical things.

One of the reasons for this is that it has traditionally been difficult to capture data about these physical objects to determine if changes need to be made.

That’s where IoT sensors come in. These devices can be placed on the objects themselves or at the source of power. There are many types of sensors that come in different shapes and sizes used to monitor different outputs.

When IoT sensors are connected to a database, analytics can be performed to provide real-time insights. This could be as simple as “the temperature around this pipe is too low” or as complex as anomalies that can be detected only by machine learning