In this blog I will discuss IoT and then Smart Grid revolution that is changing the way electricity is going to be supplied over the next few years. Why is this important? – To build connected devices and services that help businesses and homes drive a greener IT agenda, you need to understand the road ahead so you can benefit from the changes coming.

Introduction – IoT, the cloud and connected devices

The Internet of things (IoT) is changing the way devices are connected and used. Building on the top of modern cloud infrastructures such as Amazon, Docker etc it has become easier than ever to roll out, scale up and scale down your own connected services.

Embarcadero recently ran the 4 day IoT boot camp showing how to use the powerful RAD Server middle tier technology to automatically manage a network of connected devices made with Arduino that can be connected to via any modern programming language using REST.

Seeing emerging technologies for managing a wide network of devices certainly got a lot of developers egger to build their own connected solutions. But devices will need to connect to their local environment too to get the best value out of the Internet of things.

Protocols such as Zigbee and ZWave are at the heart of the future of the connected home. These protocols are easy accessed when building RAD Server Thing Points via the 50+ IoT components in RAD Studio. Click for more on Delphi and C++Builder and the Internet of Things.

How is IoT and the Smart Grid related?

Zigbee and ZWave are important protocols for the connected home. The future smart hubs in homes that will be connected to the electric meters will enable local devices to discover when is most cost effective to use electricity, e.g. enabling you to charge your Tesla car, or Power wall during time where electricity is in abundance and offered dynamically at a lower cost rate. Being able to judge demand and share and spread electricity usage to increase capacity is one way connected devices in IoT will interact with the Smart Grid via smart hubs.

I recently did a Roadmap for Smart Grids and last Friday I spent some time with Jim McKeeth and Nick Hodges talking about Smart Grids as a guest on their weekly Delphi.org pod cast.

Above is a copy of the roadmap, and below, a special video version of the Podcast.