Embedded Web Technology is not something new. Unlike fields like IOT, Blockchain and Deep Learning which have gained great prominence in the recent 10 years or so, Embedded Web Technology has been in development and in use since almost two decades back. Isn’t shocking it? Well, there is definitely a connection with one of the most promising and emerging fields at this time – IOT. But Embedded Web Technology is more focused; it is specific to a domain.
Does Embedded Web Technology ensure lower cost?
What do you understand when you hear the word embedded? Going by the dictionary meaning, it would mean “implanted” into something. That is not far from the meaning that is used in case of Embedded Web Technology.
Embedded devices are a total class of objects. They are developed to perform a specific task such as measuring the temperature of a room, measuring the distance between the object and an obstacle and or measuring the height from the ground in case of a quadcopter. Then they perform a consecutive task which might include correcting measures like adjusting the height of the quadcopter, changing the angle of the moving object, adjusting the temperature of the AC.
But then what differentiates Embedded Tech from a Robot? Any guesses? When it comes to a Robot, there are multiple tasks being performed instead of just one simple task. Instead of just measuring the temperature and adjusting the temperature of the AC, the AC can also track the human and change the direction of wind blowing from it. In a way, a Robot can be thought of as an aggregate of Embedded Technology.
One common example of this can be a Line Following Robot. LFRs are really easy to build. You need to have an Arduino board, some wheels, three IR sensors and basic knowledge of C Programming to help you program in Embedded C. An LFR detect the presence of either a white line or a black line. It then adjusts its movement to go along with the line. This doesn’t just include turning the motor on and off, but also adjusting the speed of individual wheels for turning or even object detection using IR sensor.
This is what differentiates between a Robot and Embedded Technology. Embedded Tech performs one task: Robot does many. The main advantage that Embedded Tech offers is automation and lower cost.
Embedded Web Technology.
Now let’s move on to Embedded Web Technology.
Have you wondered if there was any memory associated with such embedded tasks? How useful would it be to be able to connect to such devices over a medium? That medium is the internet. Embedded Web Technology was first developed by NASA. It was supposedly developed and modified in the year 2002. That’s more than 15 long years. That is how old Embedded Web Technology is. You can call it the love child of the World Wide Web and Embedded Technology. It transcends the legacy operations that exist way back and paves the way for Web 2.0. Right now, however, we are way past that and in Web 3.0. But EWT helped a lot in getting this far.
To understand how Embedded Web Technology works, you have to understand the basic functioning of the WWW and server-client model.
A small Crash Course into the WWW
The world wide web consists of clients or computers like yours, trying to get or send information to either other client computers like say your friend’s or to special purpose computers which exist only to store and serve- the servers.
When you type a URL and press enter, your browser establishes the connection with the server and in short, sends the pages you wanted through a pipeline or secure channel. This channel is more like a set of rules and is known as TCP/IP. You see the response of the server on your screen. That is the basic functioning of the world wide web.
How Embedded Tech Comes into the Picture
Consider this, wouldn’t it be useful if you could connect to your AC or Fridge using the internet and check its status? That is where Embedded Web Technology comes in. Your AC or fridge acts as a peer computer. When you connect to it, it sends you the information. That is the gist of it.
The Advantage of Embedded Web Technology.
Embedded Web Technology is also commonly popular as the precursor to the Internet of Things. For the example given before, can you imagine the cost if the data from the fridge or AC was first being sent to a server and then your connection was being directed to the server as well? It would cost a lot just to maintain the server.
Instead of that, EWT allows the AC or fridge to have a user interface which then gets rendered on the browsers of your PC. This helps in reducing the cost of deploying and maintain the interface that you would interact with.
Embedded Web Technology vs IOT
Lastly, to conclude, we would like to discuss the obvious difference between EWT and IOT- two fields which are often confused together. It can seem very similar to IoT or Internet of Things. IOT is one of the hottest topics right now which can fetch a high salary. The reason being everyone wants their things to be connected and easily maintainable. That is possible though IOT.
Typically, any object can turn into a device in the IOT field of operations if it has the ability to communicate. A simple toaster would be classified as an object. But when it has an embedded chip in it that can connect it to your phone via a network ( not necessarily the internet), it would become a device.
But then, where does that leave Embedded Web Technology? Could it be that it IOT is nothing but Embedded Web Technology 2.0? In reality, IOT is a vast field. EWT forms a part of it. EWT is nothing but a subset of IoT. As a general difference, IOT or internet of Things brings together Embedded Technology, Network Technology as well as Information Technology. Embedded Web Technology has a limited scope of communication. One which includes only humans. IOT, however, is wider with the interaction between two devices along with the presence of human interaction in the system.