Did you know that connected devices are helping catch illegal poachers, save the bees, and more? Those appplications of the Internet of Things are explained in a great article… with a wrong title.

That piece is titled 3 Ways IoT is Saving the Environment, and says that:

“IoT applications that help prevent poaching, deforestation, and biodiversity loss may be lesser known than the the technology’s benefit of energy efficiency, but it’s safe to say that IoT will benefit the environment–from energy to wildlife and beyond–in enormous ways.”

In my opinion, the title of that piece should be “3 ways IoT will not harm the environment”. Because as a whole, the Internet of Things as advertised today will cause a lot of environmental damage, thanks to too many applications that are either dumb in principle, totally artificial needs or both. Here are just two examples:

• “Smart” dust: coming soon to a lung near you?
• “smart” devices that notify you when you are dumb

There surely are IoT applications that are actually useful, but so revolutionary that we can’t even imagine them now. But by default, what WILL benefit the environment is using as LITTLE IoT as possible, connecting objects to the Internet only where it solves concrete, already existing problems. The solutions presented in that article should be taken as great applications of that approach, not of IoT as it is usually advertised.