SummaryThe Internet of Things (IoT) is a system that includes smart items with different sensors, advanced technologies, analytics, cloud servers, and other wireless devices that integrate and work together to create an intelligent environment that benefits end users. With its wide spectrum of applications, IoT is revolutionizing both the current and future generations of the Internet. IoT systems can be employed for broad‐ranging real applications, such as agriculture, the environment, cities, healthcare, and the industrial sector. In this paper, we briefly discuss the three‐tier architectural view of IoT, its different communication technologies, and the smart sensors. Moreover, we study various application areas of IoT such as the environmental domain, healthcare, agriculture, smart cities, and industrial, commercial, and general aspects. A critical analysis is shown for the existing schemes and techniques related to this work. Further, this paper addresses the basic context, tools and evaluation approaches, future scope, and the advantages and disadvantages of the aforestated IoT applications. A comprehensive analysis is provided for each domain along with its fundamental parameters like the quality of service (QoS), network longevity, scalability, energy efficiency, accuracy, and cost. Finally, this study highlights the technical challenges and open research problems existing in different IoT applications.