IoT Connectivity in an Office Environment

IoT connectivity, as it relates to enterprise communications, is really about the convergence of Unified Communications and IoT. You might think that UC and IoT do not have anything to do with each other, but there is natural overlap. With a UC admin dashboard, there are alerts and monitors. And with IoT, there is data to trigger alerts and monitors. It’s a marriage made in heaven, like peanut butter and chocolate.

With a UC system, there are mobile end points such as phones, tablets, and smart watches. But there could be other end points connected to a UC system, such as cameras. Or a doorbell with video that can also talk – like a Ring doorbell. So, think about all these kinds of sensors, communication devices, things connected to a UC system. Some of these obviously can be connected with either 5G or Wi-Fi. But some can be connected with LPWA as well. The enterprise business communication hub of the future will be able to handle all required signaling types.

Any of these things that are particularly important to be tied to a UC/PBX system when there is RTC (real time communications) required as determined by the sensor / edge computing calculations can be set up to enable alerts in the form of a real time voice and/or video call to appropriate person.

For instance, a sensor on the factory floor can make a VoIP telephone call based on predefined criteria that can automatically trigger specific workflows, such as the reordering of components, either because they’re running low or because of defects on a recent batch of products, for example. Or IoT devices that are in the office that are connected to the PBX (temp sensors, alarms, etc.) can accept voice commands over the phone. Or one can view a video feed of an IoT imaging devices by dialing its telephony number (SIP endpoint or mobile).

There possibilities are enormous. But these RTC examples need to be tied to a UC business communication system to make this particular convergence of IoT and UC happen.

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