Lab Reaction: Connected cows: An actually useful example of the Internet of Things (seriously)

A minor confession that’ll probably not come as a surprise to those that know me best. I’m addicted to the odd and/or extraordinary ways people have chosen to use IoT implementations.

So, when I saw a startup with the name of Moocall and that it was tagged under IoT, how could I possibly not love this article?

In my opinion, one of the greatest struggles of IoT is finding relevance. There are lots of gadgets and gizmos, but most people just don’t see the benefit in the elevated costs of those devices. Sure, you get nerds like me that’ll latch onto anything and everything and try and find a way to make it relevance… but to the average Joes and Janes of the world, it often just doesn’t matter.

So that’s why I’m super intrigued by any story about IoT that just seems weird. Here you have a bunch of Irish farmers that have electronic devices strapped to their cows’ tails. (I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere). But the next paragraph tells the awesome part of this story. This unlikely marriage of good old-fashion farming and technology, could lead to reduction in mortality rate of cows by 80%, reducing costs and increasing productivity.

Passing by an article like this with a silly title seems easy, but sometimes tucked away in the hidden corners of the technology world the weird can turn interesting.