What are we talking about? Beyond the mere translation from English, it would help to understand if we gave a more "free" interpretation.

We are talking about intelligent objects (things). Since, and let's add a piece, today smart is often used instead of intelligent, we have smart objects, which are the basis of'Internet of Things.

But let's take a step back to project ourselves even further into the "present" of this topic! After this example everything will be much clearer.

From a certain moment on, we moved from the mobile phone to the smartphone (i.e. smart>intelligent and phone>telefono).

And what characterizes the smartphone? The possibility of doing many other things in addition to calling, of doing them by interacting with us and above all by giving a name to the various activities: chatting, taking photographs, getting information, waking up, entertaining ourselves, remembering things, carrying out some tasks in a planned and autonomous manner (in reality upon our prior setting).

Let's project the concept of the smartphone onto an object, for example a light bulb! What does a smart-bulb do? It turns on remotely, for example.

“Remembers”, after setting, what time to turn on and off, analyzes how much it costs to have it turned on in that period of time, adjusts its brightness based on the lighting in the room, the color of the light beam based on the moment or period of the 'year.

Let's raise the bar, let's think about a program that analyzes the switching on and off habits of the light bulb itself, or of a high energy absorption appliance. We would have data, what do we do with it? We use them to improve and rationalize the use of that light or that appliance.

Smart object

For a private home it can mean understanding why a higher bill arrived that month, for a business it can help to plan its activities better, understanding how to use resources and, therefore, save or increase productivity. All this thanks to an "intelligent object".

Let's add other intelligent objects, we would almost dare say "thinking" since they are connected to a program that processes, let's connect them between them, we make them "talk". What will we have achieved? A set of intelligent objects that act according to a criterion.

A smart (intelligent) community of thinking, communicating and acting objects; we enclose everything in an environment, for example a house, we have a smart-home. It means rationalized, comfortable, efficient, automated housing.

Let's transport the concept to a company, without wanting to repeat ourselves, the parallel is easily made:

Smart home > Smart company

It translates into a company that produces more, better and with greater profit!
We are moving from a company to an industry! But we'll talk about this in the next appointment.