Understanding IoT through the human activity: Analogical interpretation of IoT by activity theory

Abstract

Currently Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the major issues in academia and industry. However, studies so far have tended to focus on technical aspects. The future technologies need to be developed in user perspectives because users center in connected situations based on IoT. As a part of addressing this issue, the present study proposes a conceptual model for the IoT process, which can be likened to a human activity process based on ‘Activity Theory (AT)’. Focusing on how people actually work in IoT situations, we attempt to draw an analogy between IoT and AT in terms of three interaction types among input device, sensor/network, task of IoT device, standard/protocol, and output device. The proposed model provides new viewpoint and direction for future research in IoT domains.