IoT Levels:

An IoT ecosystem can be designed on different levels. Each level is fundamentally a roadmap of how to deploy the components of the IoT ecosystem. Thus, the same IoT ecosystem can be designed using level 1 and level 2 standards both. The only thing that will differ is the way the components are arranged altogether.

Following are the six different levels of IoT:

1. Level 1: In this level all the components are deployed locally. There is no any cloud or external network involved in the process.

   Sensors, routers, cloud components, application etc. all are at the user’s end. This standard is good for those ecosystems where data is neither big nor varying. A uniform stream of data is coming from a pre-set group of sensors and that is all happening in a simple way.

   An example of Level 1 IoT is a smart home.

   




2. Level 2: In this level all the components are deployed locally except the servers. There is a cloud or an external network involved in the process.

   At the user’s end there are only sensors, routers and application. The cloud part is having the servers configured for the purpose of storage and analysis. This standard is good for those ecosystems where data is big. A huge amount of data is coming from many components in the ecosystem and that too on a rapid speed.

   An example of Level 2 IoT is a smart factory.

   




3. Level 3: In this level all the components are deployed locally except the servers and the network connectivity part. There is a cloud or an external network involved in the process.

   At the user’s end there are only sensors and application. The cloud part is having the essential networks for connectivity and servers configured for the purpose of storage and analysis. This standard is good for those ecosystems where data is big and varying. A huge amount of data is coming from many components deployed in many ecosystems and that too on a rapid speed.

   An example of Level 3 IoT is a smart industry.

   




4. Level 4: In this level also, all the components are deployed locally except the servers and the network connectivity part. In some cases, sensors are also in the cloud.

   At the user’s end there is only the application. The cloud part is having the essential networks for connectivity and servers configured for the purpose of storage and analysis. This standard is good for those ecosystems where data is big, varying and is coming from mobile sources.

   An example of Level 4 IoT is a courier tracking system.

   




5. Level 5: Level 5 IoT is very similar to Level 4 but with one major advancement. In level 5 IoT, coordinator devices are also there in the local part of the ecosystem. A coordinator device coordinates a certain set of sensing devices. There is an Observer Node also in the cloud part that observes the entire process.

   




6. Level 6: Level 6 IoT is very similar to Level 5 but with one major advancement. In level 6 IoT, coordinator devices are replaced by a single component Centralized Controller and that is there in the cloud part of the ecosystem.