The concept of smart devices was first introduced in 1982 at Carnegie Mellon University with a modified vending machine to report on inventory. Ten years later, a toaster oven was connected and controlled over the Internet. However, the term Internet of Things, or IoT, wasn’t officially coined until 1999 by Kevin Ashton of Procter & Gamble, and it took over ten years for IoT to really take off.
Those early days of IoT involved applications that just needed to connect for a moment in time—to measure inventory or turn on a toaster. These devices, and the many IoT applications that came after, connected to the Internet using the same cellular technologies originally designed for mobile phones. And that’s because the technology met the connectivity needs for those applications.
Tern plc (LON:TERN) backs exciting, high growth IoT innovators in Europe. They provide support and create a genuinely collaborative environment for talented, well-motivated teams.
