# Industrial-Grade Edge Computing Device for Smart Furniture Products
## 1 Introduction  
Although one might argue that the connected world has also brought significant downsides, mainly in social and (false) information sharing aspects of life [1], connectivity is indeed the most important driver of the Smart City, IoT, Industry 4.0, and associated concepts that bring new applications to everyday items and processes. Industry 4.0 is based on the intercommunication between previously unconnected items or items that were connected using incompatible systems, thus meaning that their connectivity was not in real time [2]. A new application layer on top of Industry 4.0 and IoT brings added value for making previously limited systems smarter. It enables a completely new overview of the entire system and provides a base for new Business Intelligence (BI) [3]. In industrial applications, this is easily perceivable through the comparison between the classic Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) applications and new Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)-based applications. A similar example is the comparison between the classic programmable logic controller (PLC) and embedded computers with superior edge computing capabilities [4]. Smart city, smart living, and quality of life are just a few of several up-to-date topics covered in smart city aspirations, explained in detail in [5]. The Internet of People is asubset of the Internet of Everything or Internet of Things. It includes people communicating with items that did not previously exist or items that have been significantly improved (upgraded, retrofitted, or otherwise enriched--it is these processes that are crucial for defining the applicability of smart furniture in this paper). These items are intended to improve the quality of everyday life by providing information or enabling connectivity in areas where it did not previously exist. Edge computing, according to [4], involves a substantial amount of information being processed on \"the edge\" of a system, or as close as possible to an information source. As opposed to cloud-based systems, given the amount of information gathered and the requested latency (minimum possible), even with gigabit Internet access speeds, it is completely impractical to send vast data to the cloud for computing and send the results back. A natural extension to the IoT world is edge computing, with edge devices being capable of so much more than just sensors, logic controllers, and small-scale reduced instruction set computer (RISC)-based devices. Modern hardware development has enabled the integration of significantly more powerful devices into increasingly small form factors. This enables integration at higher computing, connectivity, and application levels. Technology is present, and it is up to an individual business case to evaluate how integrated, robust, and powerful a device is supposed to be to serve its purpose. This research suggests a (1) future-proof device with a (2) standardized form factor made from (3) industrial-grade components with an extended life cycle that is capable of withstanding various environmental and other usage conditions, creating a new connected smart furniture product that will make a significant leap forward for this particular project. This product is in line with existing industry standards. This step is an extension of an already manufactured (proof of concept) ESP32-based smart device made of commercial-grade hardware, with a basic connectivity set (with reduced security features), modest computing capabilities, and limited or no long-term replicability. The research results will provide investors (manufacturing companies) with a viable option to upgrade their product accordingly. More on the ESP32 device is presented and referenced in Section 3. Smart furniture, as postulated by [6], can be best defined as \"designed networked furniture that is equipped with an intelligent system or is a controller operated with the user's data and energy sources\".