What is IoT?

A talk given during the AFNOG-2019 conference

Abstract:

Everybody is talking about IoT, the Internet of Things. However, few are the people who deeply understand what is hidden behind the acronym and even fewer those who are able to set-up an IoT by themselves. The talk will answer questions on how to select a processor for the IoT node, how to connect to the Internet, which communications protocol to use, which programming language, which GUI application to observe and control the IoT.

Another important question is: How much is this going to cost me.

At the end of the talk a simplistic home built IoT will be demonstrated, illustrating the theoretical aspects shown.

Slides: What is IoT?

Here are the original slides:

https://afnog.iotworkshop.africa/pub/AFNOG/Talk/afnog19-talk.odp

.. or in PowerPoint format:

https://afnog.iotworkshop.africa/pub/AFNOG/Talk/afnog19-talk.pptx

I made a few screen videos when running the demo programs which you can find here:

First the basic mosquitto video:

https://afnog.iotworkshop.africa/pub/AFNOG/Talk/mosquittoBasic.mp4

Then the video demonstration how a Python program on the IoT node can communicate through MQTT with the mosquitto server. The python program publishes dummy temperature data.

https://afnog.iotworkshop.africa/pub/AFNOG/Talk/mosquittoDummyData.mp4

The next video does not access MQTT but demonstrates how to switch an LED on a WeMos D1 prototype shield on and of. It also reads out a photo resistor and shows the change in resistance when the intensity impinging on it changes.

https://afnog.iotworkshop.africa/pub/AFNOG/Talk/protoDriver.mp4

Finally a video to demonstrate the full IoT system. You can switch the LED on the prototype board on or off with a Cayenne push button. This will change the light intensity on the photo resistor, which is shown on a gauge widget on Cayenne. If the light intensity falls below a predefined level a Cayenne trigger will switch built-in LED on the WeMos CPU on. If it goes back above that level, the built-in LED is automatically switched off again.

https://afnog.iotworkshop.africa/pub/AFNOG/Talk/cayenneProto.mp4

-- Uli Raich - 2019-04-28

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