Ramblings from an Automation Mad Man (A Blog Series)
By Jerry Maldonado - VP of Automation, Customer Lifecycle
It’s amazing how the world changes in such a quick fashion. It was only ten years ago when I would walk into the doctor’s office and tell the doctor that I feel fine. “Yes Doc, all is good! I do eat veggies all the time” is what I would tell him. Then, in about a week or so he would call to tell me that my lipids are up and tests concluded that I’m actually not eating enough veggies as I should.
Go Figure.
Today, I can go into the doctor’s office and he can confirm before I even leave that my sugar and cholesterol is high. He recommends that I need more exercise, consume a fat-free diet, cut down on the alcohol, and relax a little more. Then he tells me that I should come back in three months to make sure I am listening to him. During this visit he gives me a blood glucose meter and asks me to check my blood about three to five times a day. Then, I would upload the data to my computer and he can track my progress instantaneously to remind me to cut down on the cheese burgers (I love cheese burgers by the way).
This is the new world.
New technologies are being developed to help track and monitor your health. We have seen health trackers from Nike , Apple and now Microsoft that provide wearable devices that can communicate with your cell phone and upload your vitals, stats, and activity to a database. These wearables measure a ton of analytics on the human condition. Who knows, maybe it will be to the point that it will know I am jones for a real nice juicy hamburger at my favorite burger joint and have it already ordered by the time I get there. Although with my luck, the application will alert me with a message that says, “Sorry dude you have consumed too many calories and fat. Not enough exercise, need a salad for you.”
You figure that if they can do these things with cars, boats, planes, space shuttles, why not people. I mean they already analyze biometrics for astronauts and athletes on the treadmill. In the near future, I predict that it will be fashionable to wear an Iot deviceto measure galvanic skin response and blood pressure.
Now that leads me to a good idea (again if someone steals this I expect recognition and payment) update the wearable to monitor vitals of my daughter on a date, things get... to say... HOT and heavy.. I can initiate the daddy protocol and prevent the granddaddy effect!
Will there be any limitations?
How long will it be till these new wearable devices are updating my doctor on a daily basis? Pretty soon, my cell phone will ring and it’s my doctor saying, “Hey mad man, can you update your glucose monitor with the latest firmware? I want to add the capabilities to determine your glucose burn rate and to monitor spikes and changes.” I’ll load the app and makes the necessary updates. Once the app updates, I review the data being streamed and see my glucose meter change and a metric for something called salvation rate. Strange. Not thinking too much about it, I go about my day and I float by my favorite burger joint. As soon I walk in, my doctor alerts me via a text message that says, “are you really about to eat a cheese burger?”
There may be some benefits of these IoT devices after all and some not so good benefits. Constant updates will be critical in this new world and constant monitoring as well. Application and features will change as the new mantra of application development is realized.
Welcome to the Internet of Things and the Application Economy.
Follow the ramblings of an Automation Mad Man every Wednesday. Did you miss last week's post? Read it here: The Connected Santa