Preface

Welcome to Arduino IoT Cloud for Developers. In a world increasingly interconnected through the Internet of Things (IoT), this book serves as your comprehensive guide to mastering IoT development using the versatile Arduino platform. Whether you are a newcomer to IoT or an experienced developer looking to expand your skills, this book offers a hands-on, step-by-step approach to building meaningful IoT projects with the Arduino IoT Cloud.

The IoT has revolutionized the way we interact with the world around us. Everyday objects, from home appliances to industrial machinery, are now capable of connecting to the internet and exchanging data. This transformation presents endless opportunities for innovation and efficiency.

Arduino, renowned for its simplicity and flexibility, has become a go-to platform for IoT enthusiasts and professionals alike. The Arduino IoT Cloud, an integral part of the Arduino ecosystem, offers a powerful and user-friendly platform to build and manage IoT projects. This book is your gateway to unlocking the full potential of the Arduino IoT Cloud.

Through a combination of theory and practical examples, you’ll embark on a journey that starts with IoT fundamentals and culminates in advanced IoT applications. We’ll explore the core features of the Arduino IoT Cloud, delve into various communication technologies, and create real-world IoT solutions.

This book is designed to be accessible to all, whether you’re taking your first steps into IoT or seeking to deepen your knowledge. Each chapter provides clear explanations, code snippets, and hands-on projects to reinforce your learning.

By the end of this journey, you’ll not only have a firm grasp of IoT concepts but also the ability to design, implement, and customize IoT solutions using the Arduino IoT Cloud. Let’s embark on this exciting adventure into the world of IoT development together.

Who this book is for

Arduino IoT Cloud for Developers caters to a diverse audience, including IoT and Arduino enthusiasts venturing into IoT with Arduino, as well as those with prior Arduino experience eager to delve into IoT applications. It’s also valuable for students and academicians pursuing electronics, computer science, or engineering degrees, seeking practical IoT knowledge and project inspiration. Additionally, makers, hobbyists, and DIY enthusiasts keen on crafting real-world IoT projects for personal experimentation will find this book beneficial. For professionals such as IoT experts, engineers, and developers aiming to elevate their IoT development comprehension, this book offers a pathway to create high-quality, commercial-grade solutions.

This book accommodates both beginners and experienced readers, providing a step-by-step learning path from IoT fundamentals to advanced IoT development with the Arduino IoT Cloud. Regardless of your background, this book equips you with the skills to design and implement innovative IoT solutions.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to IoT and Arduino, covers IoT architecture along with security and Arduino.

Chapter 2, First Look at the Arduino IoT Cloud, explores the practical demonstration of the Arduino IoT Cloud with MKR Wi-Fi 1010 and Node-RED to connect old friends (older/non-compatible devices) with the Arduino IoT Cloud.

Chapter 3, Insights into the Arduino IoT Cloud Platform and the Cloud Editor, provides an overview of the Arduino IoT Cloud features, including things, devices, and dashboard widgets, and finally, we will take a deeper look at the Cloud Editor.

Chapter 4, Project #1 – A Smarter Setup for Sensing the Environment, offers a project that will practically demonstrate how to deploy a smart sensing node using WeMos D1 Mini, DHT22, and MQ-135 to send environment data to the Arduino IoT Cloud, visualizing it with stunning widgets.

Chapter 5, Project #2 – Creating a Portable Thing Tracker Using MKR GSM 1400, examines asset tracking and demonstrates how to track assets using MKR GSM 1400 and GPS module, visualizing the data using a map widget in the Arduino IoT Cloud.

Chapter 6, Project #3 – A Remote Asset Tracking Application with LoRaWAN, explores long-range communication using LoRaWAN technology. We will set up the LoRaWAN node, including the LoRaWAN Gateway, to track assets using MKR WAN 1300 and a GPS module.

Chapter 7, Enabling Communication between Different Devices, provides a practical demonstration of how to set up cloud variable sync across multiple things, enabling Thing to Thing communication by simply using a graphical user interface without any coding.

Chapter 8, Working with the Arduino IoT Cloud SDK and JavaScript, explores how developers can interact with the Arduino IoT Cloud using the JavaScript SDK, which includes API key setup and performing operations on Things, devices, cloud variables, and dashboards using JavaScript.

Chapter 9, Project #4 – Collecting Data from the Soil and Environment for Smart Farming, focuses on smart agriculture. We will explore how to sense soil moisture, soil temperature, and so on to make our agriculture smarter and more robust.

Chapter 10, Project #5 – Making Your Home Smarter by Voice Assistant, delves into smart homes. We will create a smart lamp using the WS2812 RGB ring and XIAO ESP32C3 and link the device to the Arduino IoT Cloud, as well as integrate the Arduino IoT Cloud with Amazon Alexa for a voice assistant experience.

Chapter 11, Implementing the Arduino IoT Cloud Scheduler and Over-the-Air Features, provides a practical demonstration of how to use the Cloud Scheduler in Arduino IoT Cloud to automate operations that are time-dependent. In the second part of the chapter, we will explore Over-the-Air (OTA) update features, which help us to send updates over the air without any physical connectivity to devices.

Chapter 12, Project #6 – Tracking and Notifying about Your Heart Rate, offers a practical demonstration of a smart health project, where we will use XIAO ESP32C3 with a heart rate monitoring sensor to build a wearable product, which will send data to the Arduino IoT Cloud. Then, we will use Webhooks to send our beats per minute (BPM) to Zapier for notification alerts.

Chapter 13, Scripting the Arduino IoT Cloud with Cloud CLI, teaches you how to perform operations on the Arduino IoT Cloud using the command-line tool, which includes operations on devices, Things, and dashboards, as well as OTA. This chapter will help you learn the commands and prepare you to create your own batch scripting for automated operations.

Chapter 14, Moving Ahead in the Arduino IoT Cloud, provides details about the different Arduino IoT Cloud pricing plans, including the features of each plan. It also looks at Arduino PRO Hardware and Software for Industrial IoT and provides a complete list of resources for further explorations.

To get the most out of this book

Before you start this book, you should have the following software and development boards, including a complete list of sensors, to get the most out of this book:

Software/hardware covered in the book	Operating system requirements
Arduino IDE desktop version	Windows, macOS, or Linux
Fritzing schematic design software	Windows, macOS, or Linux
An Arduino IoT Cloud account or a Zapier account	N/A
Amazon Alexa voice assistant	N/A

Development boards:

• MKR Wi-Fi 1010
• MKR GSM 1400
• MKR WAN 1300
• WeMos D1 Mini ESP8266
• XIAO ESP32C3
• ESP32 Dev Kit V1
• The Things Indoor Gateway for LoRaWAN

Sensors:

• DHT22/DHT11
• MQT-135
• The NEO 6-M u-blox GPS module
• Capacitive soil moisture sensors
• DS18B20 waterproof probes with long wires
• The WS2812 RGB ring
• A pulse sensor

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Arduino-IoT-Cloud-for-Developers. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “This cloud variable declaration is available in the thingProperties.h file.”

A block of code is set as follows:

TinyGPSPlus gps;
unsigned long previousMillis = 0;
const long interval = 30000; //milliseconds

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

npm install @arduino/arduino-iot-client
npm i request-promise

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “After setting up the configuration, click the Get new Access Token button.”

Tips or important notes

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Get in touch

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