Can Software Control Physical Devices? What IoT Means for a Small Business

At a squash club we built a system for, a member books a court in the app, walks up to the kiosk, punches in a PIN, and the court lights switch on. Nobody hands over a key. Nobody leaves money in an honesty box for the lights.

That's IoT. The term stands for "Internet of Things", which sounds like something for factories. It just means software that can sense or switch things in the real world.

You're probably already using it

If you run a business in South Africa, there's a good chance you already do this without calling it IoT. During the load-shedding years, a lot of businesses put in inverters and batteries, and started checking their battery level or solar output on their phone.

National load-shedding has been suspended since 16 May 2025, and Eskom reported 441 days in a row without it by August 2026. Load reduction still affects parts of the Eastern Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, with the aim of ending it nationwide in 2027 ^[1]. But the habit stuck: plenty of owners now expect to see what's happening at their premises from their phone.

That's the whole idea. Once something can report what it's doing, and take an instruction, software can watch it and act on it for you.

How it works, in plain terms

Every IoT setup has the same four parts.

1. Something that measures: a temperature sensor, a door sensor, a water level sensor, a power meter.
2. Something that switches: a relay or smart switch that turns lights, pumps or equipment on and off.
3. A connection: Wi-Fi, mobile data, or a cable back to a small controller.
4. Software that decides: "if the freezer goes above minus 15, send a message", or "only switch the court lights on for a paid booking".

The fourth part is where most of the value is. A sensor on its own just collects numbers. Software is what turns them into a decision.

What it can do for a small business

Here's what that can look like. The first one is being tested at a club right now; the rest are the kind of thing we'd build.

• Access that follows your bookings. At the squash club, the kiosk switches the lights on for a booked court once the booking owner enters their PIN, and the cost comes off their prepaid credit. If another court is free right now at the same rate, it offers to move them there.

• An alert before stock spoils. A temperature sensor in a fridge or freezer sends a WhatsApp the moment it warms up, instead of you finding out the next morning.

• Equipment on a schedule, or on demand. Pumps, geysers, signage or lights that switch on when they're needed, not when someone remembers.

• Seeing what's running when you're not there. Battery level, water tank level, whether the alarm is set, from your phone.

Where it breaks

IoT is useful, but it has real limits.

• Security. A cheap connected device with a weak password is an open door. In 2024 the UK banned default passwords like "admin" or "12345" on smart devices, after a consumer investigation found a home full of smart devices could face more than 12,000 hacking attempts in a single week ^[2]. Change default passwords, keep devices updated, and keep them off the network your customer data is on. In Squash Portal, a member is locked out after too many wrong PINs, and the admin is warned when a kiosk sees a run of failed attempts.

• Connection and power. If the Wi-Fi drops or the power goes, the device can't do its job. A good setup fails safe: the lights still work from the wall switch, the door still opens with a key.

• Someone has to look after it. Devices need updates and the odd battery. If nobody owns it, it slowly stops working.

• Don't build what a timer can do. If the only job is "lights on at six, off at ten", a basic timer switch from the hardware store might be all you need. IoT earns its place when the switch has to follow something else: a booking, a payment, a reading.

How to start

Start with one physical job someone does every day just to check or switch something.

Walking to the back to check the freezer. Driving in to switch the pump on. Handing out a key. Then ask what it costs when that job gets missed.

If an off-the-shelf smart device solves it, use that. If it has to connect to your bookings, payments or records, that's where a custom build makes sense, because the device is only useful once it knows what the rest of your business knows.

Got something physical in your business that you'd like software to watch or switch? Tell us what it is, and we'll tell you honestly whether you need a build or a timer.

You guide it. We build it.