Internet of Things (IoT) Applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) allows us to use technology to enhance our comfort, improve our energy efficiency, simplify the tasks that consume our home and work life and give us greater control over our lives. AJ Tech Research Labs is increasingly able to deliver the basic building blocks that power the IoT.

  • Connected Home

    A Connected Home can mean different things to different people, but it's essentially a home with one or more (or many) devices connected together in a way that allows the homeowner to control, customize and monitor their environment.

    That can mean anything from a programmable learning thermostat to a security system of window, door and motion sensors, to the future of smart appliances. The common denominator is that ideally all of these devices should come together into a connected ecosystem that is easy for the homeowner to access and control. If the IoT is fundamentally about making our lives easier and more connected, then the implications for a truly Connected Home are game-changing.

    For example, do your kids get home before you every day? With the right devices you can know when one of them comes home, or if one leaves. You can make sure that they don't crank down the thermostat to Antarctic levels. You can even keep an eye on who's with them, and get the fridge to remind you via text message to pick up milk on your way home.

    That's just one example of how a Connected Home can increase control over your life and reassure you about your family's safety. The practical applications are almost infinite.

    AJ Tech’ ultra-low power MCUs, sensors and wireless devices star in Connected Home applications from leading home device providers, like the SmartThings Hub and Comcast Xfinity system.

    The concepts behind the Connected Home naturally extend to entire connected buildings. The Aria hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, has more than 70,000 connected devices using the ZigBee wireless protocol across 6000 guest rooms. Each room has a touch panel that allows guests to fine-tune their environment by adjusting temperature, curtains, automated turn off of unused lights and a thermostat that responds when a guest enters or leaves. It's both a superior guest experience and a way to become more energy efficient.

  • Wearables

    Wearable technology is a blanket term that covers a vast array of devices that monitor, record and provide feedback on you or your environment. Broadly speaking, you can divide wearables along two lines:

    Fitness and Environment: Fitness bands and watches and even smart clothes are able to monitor and transmit data on your daily activity levels through step counting, heart rate and temperature.

    Health: These wearables monitor crucial health factors like oxygen saturation, heart rate and more, and can communicate any results outside of a programmed range to the patient and to her physician.

  • Industrial Automation and IoT

    The Internet of Things has profound implications for industrial automation and the industrial internet of things. With wireless connectivity, advanced sensor networks, machine-to-machine communications, traditional industrial automation will become more informed and more efficient than ever before.

    • AJ Tech industrial isolation products protect equipment from noisy power planes and communications busses.
    • Our custom timing products offer unmatched flexiblity in industrial clocks, buffers and oscillators.
    • And our isolation, microcontrollers and wireless MCUs provide easy on-ramps to motor control, system interconnects and adding wireless.

  • Digital Class Rooms and Distance Learning

    Most computer classrooms, including those used for language learning applications, have a common computer/networking infrastructure.

    Computer workstations are provided at the instructor position and at each of the student positions. The computer workstations are interconnected via an internal Local Area Network, (LAN), which enables files to be shared among all computers.

    In some cases, a LAN-based computer, known as a file server or media server, provides local storage of lesson content and other digital teaching resources. A special network station (known as a router) enables access to external resources, including the Internet, via a Wide Area Network, (WAN), connection.

    This infrastructure is extremely flexible. It can be used as the basis for teaching almost any subject matter. It can be easily adapted for special uses like distance learning and/or language learning.

    Its primary purpose is to ensure that computers enhance the educational benefits associated with classroom based learning activities, namely shared experiences, teamwork, and interaction with one’s peers.

    The system gives teachers the ability to regulate what appears on student computer screens during group exercises. It gives teachers the ability to share their computer display (or that of a model student) with one student, a group of students or the whole class. It gives teachers the ability to take keyboard/mouse control of a student computer right from their own desktop. It gives students the ability to electronically raise their hands and get help (discretely) from the teacher.

    A touch panel models the actual classroom layout so that teachers can readily monitor and control what’s going on in their classroom. For example, the raised-hand icons show at a glance which students have questions.

    To minimize unwanted distractions, and focus student attention on what the instructor has to say the blanking function enables the instructor to blank all student workstation screens and lock all keyboards and mice.

    The group broadcast function enables the instructor to share his computer screen and audio with the entire class. With the group broadcast function, the instructor can also choose to make any student computer screen the source of a broadcast. This is useful for sharing both bad and good examples of student work with the class.

    In the event the training program needs to be web-casted a camera and microphone can integrated to a web server and you are ready to capture your presentation for live broadcast or on demand viewing. This can help you to capture audio and video content and all of the visual information shown on your PC. Once this is done, the Web server will have saved a copy of your presentation that can be edited and made searchable within a content management system.