The Internet of Things connects physical devices - sensors, actuators, machines - to networks. Industrial IoT (IIoT), consumer IoT, and infrastructure IoT have distinct architecture patterns.
4.3 The Internet of Things
Three IoT categories
Category
Examples
Driver
Consumer
Phones, watches, smart home
Mass market
Industrial
Factory sensors, IIoT
ROI
Infrastructure
Smart cities, traffic, utilities
Long-lived asset
The five-layer IoT reference architecture
Protocols by layer
Layer
Protocols
Network
LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, Sigfox, 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Messaging
MQTT (pub/sub), CoAP (REST-light), AMQP
Industry
OPC UA, Modbus, BACnet
Worked example - cold-chain logistics fleet
Layer
Implementation
Sensing
GPS + temperature sensor
Network
LoRa for tracking + 4G periodic upload
Edge
On-board MCU buffers; alerts on threshold
Cloud
Ingestion + dashboard + SMS
Application
Dispatch sees route + temp in real time
Security in IoT - the hard part
Risk
Control
Default credentials
Per-device unique at provisioning
Unsigned firmware
Signed updates with secure boot
No encryption on link
mTLS to cloud
10-year deployed life
Plan EOL and key rotation upfront
Mentor’s tip: Five layers: sense, network, edge, cloud, app. MQTT is the default protocol; LoRa + 5G the default networks. Security defaults are the source of most IoT incidents - mandate firmware signing + per-device identity before procurement.
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