Use Cases For IoT Apps For Smart Cities

The concept of smart cities is not new but it has recently started witnessing a full realization. As the Internet of Things has become more of a commodity than an innovation, cities across the world have become more tech-focused. Moreover, despite the coronavirus pandemic, people are consistently moving to or visiting cities for reasons such as employment opportunities, better living, etc. In such conditions, cities must become smarter to accommodate the growing population.

Therefore, smart cities backed by the use cases of the IoT will become a norm in numerous areas in the world. Moreover, mobile apps will continue to support and accelerate the implementation of smart cities due to their ability to send real-time updates no matter where in the world. In this blog, we will discuss some of the top use cases of IoT-based apps for smart cities.

What’s a smart city?

First, let’s define what a smart city exactly is. A smart city is an urban area that uses technology to collect data and uses these data sets to provide a better quality of government services and maintain the welfare of its residents. Let’s look at an example to make things clearer.

Use Cases Of IoT Apps for Smart Cities 

The most common use cases of using IoT for a smart city are:

• Lighting: IoT allows smarter control of street lighting depending on weather conditions and street occupancy. A mobile app can help analyze this data and send alerts on when to switch off or on the lights in a particular area. It can also send alerts in case any of the lights stop working. This further leads to a reduction of lighting costs and the adoption of lighting to meet the real needs of citizens.
• Household energy consumption: Household energy consumption needs the most effective management. The energy used at home includes water, electricity, and gas. Just like lighting, constant monitoring allows for better energy distribution and may help decrease the bills via a mobile dashboard and controls that toggle the switches for electronics and appliances.
• Waste collection and disposal: Sensors can indicate when waste bins are full and send an alert to the mobile devices of the staff, so that community services can more accurately manage the vehicle load and arrive only when containers are full. Sensors can also alert a waste thrower on the app on his phone if the waste is put in the wrong bin. 
• Infrastructure monitoring and maintenance: IoT offers such options as preventive maintenance, predictive maintenance, and instant notifications on mobile apps for community services to timely react to any malfunctions in the water supply or heating network.
• Transportation: In terms of smart city, transportation covers both traffic and management of municipal vehicle fleets. In addition, it can help in dynamic traffic modeling to prevent congestion, management of municipal vehicles, etc. 
• Emergency services: IoT provides emergency teams the time to react to signals received from sensors and thus improve the quality of services. In case of accidents, terrorist activities, etc, alerts can be sent and responses can be in real-time expediting the preventive measures.
• Public security: IoT can enhance public safety with face recognition and video surveillance technologies, thus reducing the number of street crimes. People who are on the run, or commit minor street crimes can be identified and tracked down through these smart apps. 

Conclusion 

IoT holds an immense potential to hasten urbanization, create innovative experiences for citizens, and daily chores more comfortable as well as secure. Municipalities must take a determined approach to create a functional, scalable, and greener smart city with the help of technology partners and wearable mobile app developers. A well-designed smart city will expedite the IoT implementation in cities and accelerate growth in various parts of the world.