Volume 9 in Springer’s “Smart Sensors, Measurement and Instrumentation” series, this edited book is composed of ten chapters followed by an editor biography. Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay is an experienced editor with a PhD from Kanazawa University, Japan. He is currently a professor of sensing technology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand.

The discipline of computer science and technology, due to its rapidly evolving nature, is very efficient in inventing new terms for fundamentally the same or similar things every few years. The Internet of Things (IoT) is obviously a new technology, but nevertheless it is one of those rehashing of fundamentals. From a fundamental point of view, it is essentially wirelessly connected smart devices. One can visualize the connectedness starting from individual wearable devices and trace it all the way to connected cities and beyond. The fundamental idea is the use of Internet mechanisms and specific Internet protocols (IPs) to connect these wearable smart devices on individuals to their homes and individual transportation vehicles, as well as to entities in public places in cities such as hospitals, public transportation, and even retail establishments. This being the general idea, as expected, the devil is in the details. This set of collected papers addresses many aspects associated with the details of IoT. The editor is aware of the situation and qualifies his positions in the preface: “[IoT] is different from traditional wireless sensor networks as well as computer networks and therefore poses more challenges to solve such as limited energy, restricted lifetime, etc.”

This is a reference book. Although the chapters were compiled with an integrated presentation in mind, they are still disconnected individual contributions. It is not a textbook, nor is it a book for people who do not know much about computer technologies and wish to learn about IoT. It can be beneficial to computer scientists and technologists who want to learn more about these techniques, standards, protocols, and technologies.

The book consists of ten chapters. The first chapter, “Internet of Things: Challenges and Opportunities,” by the editor and N. K. Suryadevara, provides broad exposure to IoT through the use of worldwide documented cases. The second chapter, “Exploring Major Architectural Aspects of the Web of Things,” by Iván Corredor Pérez and Ana M. Bernardos Barbolla, is about the Web of Things (WoT), open platforms, and the nature of integrated devices in this framework. The next chapter, “Embedded Web Technologies for the Internet of Things,” by Walter Colitti et al., covers the adaption of open standard communication protocols in web technologies and embedded IP and its impact on WoT. Chapter 4, “High-Level Internet of Things Applications Development Using Wireless Sensor Networks,” is by Zhenyu Song et al.; its very descriptive title clearly states its content. The next chapter’s encrypted title, “6TiSCH Wireless Industrial Networks: Determinism Meets IPv6,” is simply about the standards working group’s (6TiSCH) approach to wireless networks of the next generation; it is by Maria Rita Palattella et al. Chapter 6, “Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks and Trajectory-Based Routing,” by Yanmin Zhu et al., covers a particular message routing in vehicular ad hoc networks, as well as gives a basic overview of other routing techniques. The seventh chapter, by Mihai T. Lazarescu, is titled “Internet of Things Low-Cost Long-Term Environmental Monitoring with Reusable Wireless Sensor Network Platform” and covers exactly what the descriptive title clearly states. The next chapter, “A High Performance ROIC for a Standalone Monitoring System in IoT Environments,” by R. Aragones et al., covers the readout integrated circuit (ROIC) for a standalone monitoring system. Chapter 9, by N. K. Suryadevara et al., is titled “Ambient Assisted Living Environment Towards Internet of Things Using Multifarious Sensors Integrated with XBee Platform.” It talks about a tested prototype in an actual home environment and provides coverage of associated technologies. The last chapter, “Towards Autonomous Wireless Sensors: RFID and Energy Harvesting Solutions,” by Y. Duroc and G. Andia Vera, is concerned with the smart and efficient use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. The book concludes with a short biography of the editor followed by a basic index.

In conclusion, I found this book difficult to read due to the very specific nature of each chapter written by specialists. It is not for a general audience.