Imagining the future… commercial IoT products and services in one place
Korea’s three telecom carriers showcase their diverse IoT services
The environmental sector is no exception… confirming IoT’s potential for growth
The 2017 International IoT Exhibition
An event offered a one-stop look at how the Internet of Things (IoT), in the spotlight as a core technology of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is being put to use in everyday life.
The 2017 International IoT Exhibition ran for three days, from October 11 to 13, in Hall B on the first floor of COEX, hosted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and organized by the Korea Internet of Things Association. The event showed how quickly IoT is spreading across industries and into daily life, and offered a firsthand look at the latest IoT trends. It also confirmed that interest in IoT is hotter than ever: crowds of attentive visitors packed the booths to hear about products, services, and IoT technology.
The 2017 International IoT Exhibition
The exhibition featured IoT products for industry — smart factory, smart city, smart farm, and environmental management systems — as well as IoT-converged products for daily life (smart home, autonomous vehicles, energy, smart healthcare, personal living, safety/security, and more). Alongside the major corporations, startups and mid-sized companies presenting diverse products and solutions built on strong technology and fresh ideas drew particular attention.
The IoT Boom Reaches the Environmental Sector
Beyond infrastructure providers, the show also highlighted the achievements of a wide range of companies working to create new value by connecting products. Environment-related products made especially notable strides.
Leotech introduced the ‘Air Tumbler,’ a device that compares indoor and outdoor air quality. An IoT-based comparative air quality monitor, it measures indoor and outdoor air simultaneously, analyzes the results, and tells users when conditions are right for ventilation. “To secure the fresh air our lives depend on, it measures air quality inside and outside the home and lets you know when the outdoor air is good enough to ventilate,” explained researcher Taein Eom of the SW team at Leotech’s technology research institute. The Air Tumbler has built-in sensors that measure fine dust, volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide levels, temperature, and humidity, and it sends the readings to a server. The analyzed data is delivered through a mobile app, so users can ventilate only when it is safe to do so.
Another company presented a monitor for radon, a colorless, odorless, tasteless radioactive gas. iSquare exhibited a home radon detector that makes it easy to measure radon levels. Radon is a Group 1 carcinogen that enters the body through breathing and accumulates in the lungs. “One hour after powering on the radon detector you can check the radon level, and it takes a new reading every 10 minutes after that,” an iSquare representative explained. “It is not only light and compact but also comes in a variety of colors, so it can double as an interior accessory.”
AirKok, a portable fine dust monitor released by E3, also drew attention. Its biggest advantage is portability: fine dust can now be measured at home, outdoors, inside vehicles, and in many other settings. “Because AirKok measures with laser light-scattering, its accuracy is higher than other products,” an E3 representative explained, adding, “Through the AirKok app, you can also look after your family’s health based on the readings.”
Many companies presented smart farm solutions. Daliworks introduced its smart farm service, already deployed on a working strawberry farm. “Sensors measure the conditions farm owners need — temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, and more — and IoT technology relays the readings for real-time monitoring. This allows us to provide an optimal growing environment,” a Daliworks representative emphasized, adding, “You can monitor conditions inside and outside the farm in real time and receive an immediate alert when something goes wrong. You can also automate environmental control with situational rules — for example, if the greenhouse temperature rises above 22 degrees, keep the vents open until it falls to 21.”
The exhibition made clear that the surge of interest in IoT is not confined to the IT industry. Industry professionals, of course, but also academics — students and professors alike — and members of the general public were easy to spot throughout the venue. International visitors were a common sight as well, showing keen interest in Korea’s IoT technology. The Korea Internet of Things Association, the event organizer, estimates that some 20,000 people visited the 2017 International IoT Exhibition. The show proved a fine opportunity to imagine how IoT technology will evolve the future.
As Vice President Hyeongon Park of the National Information Society Agency put it in his opening address at the IoT International Conference — “Over the past three years, watching ideas become prototypes and then commercial products, I could feel how quickly IoT is being woven into everyday life” — the event offered a glimpse of the future through the evolution of IoT.
by Greenpost Korea, reporter Kyuhee Cho
