The Role of IoT to Bring the Outside World Into Metaverse?

How Will IoT Integrate The Real World With The Metaverse?

First introduced in 1999, the internet of things (IoT) connects thousands of devices such as thermostats, voice activated speakers and medical devices, to a wide range of data.

Now, IoT is set to transform the metaverse at it seamlessly connects the 3D world to a large number of real-life devices.

IRIS Software Group, one of the UK’s largest private software companies, provides software solutions and services that substantially enhance operational compliance, efficiency and accuracy.

Here, the company’s Head of Portfolio Modernisation, Jonathan Priestley, shares his insights into IoT and the metaverse.

What role do you imagine IoT will play in the metaverse?

IoT will enable us to overcome one of the greatest challenges we face in the metaverse — how to map data from real life, in real-time, into a digital reality. IoT’s main role will be to bring the outside world into the digital realm.

There’s no doubt more advanced IoT architectures will be needed in the metaverse and its immersive virtual environment. However, the real hype of the metaverse is in augmented reality (AR), not virtual reality (VR). IoT will enable users to be more than just interconnected between the virtual and real world, it will create a digital twin of people in the metaverse — what we are starting to know as a person’s ‘avatar’.

Metaverse + IoT: The Future we are Pacing To

If we go by the expert speculations and rumours doing rounds in the market, we can say that Metaverse and IoT will revamp the tech space for good. When integrated together, Metaverse and IoT will unlock new opportunities for industrial domain, individual needs, and social requirements. The scope of this partnership will help Metaverse to overcome its limitations and expand its usability status to more diversified realms. IoT will allow virtual spaces to interact and access the real world seamlessly whereas Metaverse technology will offer the necessary 3D user interface for the IoT device cluster. This will provide a user-centered IoT and metaverse experience to the users. The combo will enable streamlined data flow and support data-based decisions through minimum training and efforts.

Importance of IoT in Metaverse

Internet of Things will play a significant role in combating one of the darkest challenges hovering over the Metaverse sphere. That is, the ability of Metaverse to extract data from the physical world and infuse it into the virtual world. To derive the desired outcomes, it is essential that the data mapped from the real environment is accurate, planned, secured, relevant, and in real-time. As IoT is already into the business for many years now with thousands of cameras, sensors, and tech devices in its cluster, it is quite an opportunity of exposure for the Metaverse.

Where earlier the most prized possessions were jewlery and gems, today it is data. The new gold, as we call it, has left us vulnerable to the outer world especially with the growing craze for social presence. Within the digital space, data is the most valuable resource as it gives the colors to the otherwise empty canvas of the digital realm. So, it is the capacity of Metaverse to extract the real-world data and implement it into its virtual ecosystem that will guarantee its success. The data ingestion will largely comprise flow from IoT devices as well. It is essential to represent this data in a meaningful pattern within the Metaverse while also ensuring its security and access for users. Firms are investing hefty amounts of capital on Metaverse projects featuring data intelligence solutions.

In simple words, IoT’s main objective will be to provide the necessary link between the exterior world and the digital space. To empower Metaverse, it is essential to build more advanced versions of IoT infrastructure that can easily support the complications of the digital environment. IoT will allow people to switch between the two worlds without any issue. The use of digital avatars within the IoT ecosystem will help to paint a new picture of the next-gen Internet.

How important is data and data collection in the metaverse?

Data is the new gold. It is the doorway to information value in the digital world. Without data, the metaverse is just a blank canvas of the world in an online forum.

What will most likely make or break the metaverse’s success will be the capacity to capture data from the ‘real’ world, including the mass ingestion of data from IoT devices. This data not only needs to be represented in a meaningful way in the metaverse but must also be responsive and properly secured.

To support their metaverse strategy, 84% of leaders across the IT, telecom, and technology sectors say they are planning to look at procurement data intelligence solutions to be deployed inside virtual worlds in the next two years.

How can IoT connect the metaverse to real-life devices? Why is this important?

The real connection between IoT and the metaverse relies on cloud technology. Pioneering cloud providers like AWS and Microsoft have enabled infinitely scalable access to the cloud and the collection and processing power this provides organisations.

Cloud-native platforms will drive innovation in the coming years, enabling forward thinking developers to build new application architectures that are resilient & agile to change so they can quickly adopt the metaverse.

Without cloud technology, there wouldn’t be the processing power or speed required to send the data collected by IoT devices to the metaverse in real-time. It’s this underlying infrastructure of IoT devices, data analytics and services, built on top of cloud technology, that will enable us to have a real-time avatar in the metaverse.

Central to the metaverse’s success will be the seamless interoperability between AR and IoT data, underpinned by the cloud, to unlock new, advanced applications that will help solve real-world problems.