People say that the IoT revolution started with the CMU coke machine, but really the world of Connected Things was already going. The CMU coke machine could not do two important things: 1) order more coke if it was empty, 2) let you buy a drink online.
GE has been a major proponent of IoT in their ecosystems. They put an extensive sensor set into their turbines, and upload the data to the cloud and then they can optimize the engine to put out optimal performance, and can schedule maintenance to make sure.