11 Must Read Books This Summer on Internet of Things (IoT)

Introduction

Imagine a world where your car texts you saying, ‘You didn’t close the back door properly. Please come and do it before it’s too late :D’

Not just your car, what if your refrigerator, AC, microwave and all other digital devices become your every day companion? Such is the world, we humans have promised ourselves in near future. Undoubtedly, there is a long road to achieve this end state, but the work has already begun.

The massive upsurge in the availability of data in last few years have fueled this passion for breakthrough innovation. The idea of making human life faster and comfortable is the essence of discovering “Internet of Things”.

This concept is fairly easy to understand. Let me explain it in one line: “Internet of things means connecting things (digital devices) with internet”. IoT is majorly driven by data, sensors and actuators. With basic programming skills, anyone can build variety of useful products.

If you are curious to know more about it (I’m sure you would), reading books is the best way to nourish one’s curiosity. Therefore, I’ve listed some of the best books to make you familiar with complete picture  of Internet of Things (IOT).

Note: This article is not intended to promote any book. These books have been selected on the basis of user reviews and extent of topics coverage. For your convenience, I’ve provided amazon links to buy books.

List of Books on Internet of Things

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

This book is written by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee. This book defines the sheer power of digital forces in near future. The world is yet to see the revolution brought by machines. It admits that the future will be dominated by connected intelligent machines. It talks about the influence of technological advancements on businesses around the world. The focus is kept on envisaging ways which will instigate progression in future economies. To make it interesting, the author discusses concepts like Moore’s law, artificial intelligence, digitization and many more.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Getting started with Internet of Things

What if you want to try to hand at building IOT products, but don’t know programming ? This book will help you sail through ocean of IOT concepts and provide amazing projects to work on. This book is written by Cuno Pfister. It demonstrate the methods used to connect sensors, processors and actuators over internet. Precisely, it teaches programming using .NET micro framework and Netduino Plus Board. For better understanding, Cuno has adapted a step wise approach to explain concepts. Also, the practice examples are provided to facilitate practical understanding.

Available: Buy on Amazon

The Silent Intelligence

It’s a must read book for anyone who feels curious about internet of things and think of making investments in IOT products. Not much has been said and revealed about this quantum leap of technology. But, this book is written to make every entrepreneur, executive, investor familiar with growth, possibilities and roadblocks in living with connected products. This book is written by Daniel Kellmereit and Daniel Obodovski. Reading this book will provide you a comprehensive outlook of the chances of living with connected devices in near future.

Available: Buy on Amazon

IoT Disruptions: The Internet of Things – Innovation & Jobs

Amidst the excitement of living with connected devices, we fail to notice that IoT becomes a completely untapped domain to locate jobs and opportunities. Do you know from where should you start ? This book, written by Sudha Jamthe, empowers you with the knowledge require to get your first job in IoT domain. There is no doubt that companies across all industries are investing heavily in this concept, this book provides enough inspiration to seek IoT as your next career option.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Meta Products: Building the Internet of Things

This book is best suited for people whose interest lies in consumer products and technology. Meta products are nothing but, our daily use physical products connected with internet. This book is written by Wimer Hazenberg, Menno Huisman and Sara Cordoba Rubino. It introduces you with the inherent concepts of designing meta products , provides several ideas and shows a crystal clear picture of yet to come future. For practical understanding, authors have shared real life case studies at the end of every chapter.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Everyware: The dawning age of ubiquitous computing

This book is written by Adam Greenfield. If you’ve imagined yourself in a world where the number of connected devices will be more than human population, this book will allow you to delve into the plausible future of human world. Everyware is nothing but we being surrounded by connected devices everywhere. It makes you understand the ubiquitous influence of computational devices on human lives. The author has aptly shared his invaluable thoughts on a world, driven by connected devices and highlights the issues and possibilities which can arise when the two world meets.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Trillions

Trillions is a complete package to learn about past, present & future of connected devices. It is written by Peter Lucas and Joe Ballay. ‘Trillions’ refers to the number of connected devices in near future. It is an insightful guide to prepare companies for future technology innovations and help them understand the real value of operating in information age. This thought provoking book is a must read for designers, entrepreneurs, professionals, executives and anyone who likes to walk ahead of time. It encompasses the disciplinary ideas from biology, economic, ecology to provide a ‘deep enough’ overview of IoT world.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Designing Connected Products

This book is written by Claire Rowland, Elizabeth Goodman, Martin Charlier and Alfred Lui. We are preparing well to enter in the world of connected devices. But, designing those devices has its own multitude of challenges. If you ever want to contribute to growth of IOT by designing products, this is a good place to start. This book is best suited for people having experience in UX designing. It explains wide range of critical designs, challenges, user touch points and roadblocks in building great products. In short, it’s a hand book for designing connected products.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Learning Internet of Things

This book is written by Peter Waher. Experiencing a change brought by someone is easy, but bringing that change is difficult. This book is a must read for people who want to create IOT products and change the world. Books listed above are good enough to make you familiar with the impact and applications of IOT devices. But, this book comprises of step wise tutorial based on Raspberry Pi. In this book, you will learn about popular protocols, network topology, scalability, communication patterns and much more.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Big Data and The Internet of Things

The staple food of IoT is data. In order to design IoT products, it is immensely necessary to learn the ways of handling, storing, building architectures to accommodate massively large amounts of data. This book is must read of enterprise managers, big data professionals to learn about the most effective ways of storing data and using that data for building products. In addition, it provides practical advises, list of challenges and risk factors which must be kept in mind while integrating big data with IoT products.

Available: Buy on Amazon

The Design of Everyday Things

While this book is not about data or Internet of Things specifically, I believe this is must for people designing or creating new products (which should interest most of the people reading books in IoT)

This book is a must read for people who find product designing as a fascinating subject. To design successful products, it’s important that we learn about the tiny nuances which makes a product great or fail. This book is written by Don Norman. It consists of various insightful instances where you’ll be compelled to think twice before turning the page. It focuses on designing everyday things in the most efficient manner. You don’t require programming skills to understand this book, it’s just a reservoir of useful ideas which can be helpful for anyone.

Available: Buy on Amazon

Disclosure: The amazon links in this article are affiliate links. If you buy a book through this link, we would get paid through Amazon. This is one of the ways for us to cover our costs while we continue to create these awesome articles. Further, the list reflects our recommendation based on content of book and is no way influenced by the commission.

End Notes

After reading these books, you’ll realize that the real impact of data revolution is yet to be seen. Using data for building predictive models is just the tip of the iceberg. The real usage of personal data will be seen once connected devices get the life some of these books describe. That will be a world where humans will be busy engaged with personal devices and would have no time enjoy the natural scenery. Well, everything has a cost. Right ?

What do you think about Internet of Things? Have you read any of these books? Do you think IoT is just a hype and will calm down in years to come? Do share your interesting viewpoints in comments.

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