Preface

The Intel Galileo board is an amazing development board for all your DIY electronic projects. The board combines the power of an Intel processor with the simplicity of the Arduino platform. This makes it the perfect board for all sorts of projects, especially projects requiring complex interactions with cloud-based services, making it the ideal platform for Internet of Things applications.

In this book, we will start from simple projects that can be done with most Arduino boards. However, even at this point, we will use the advanced features of the Galileo board.

Later, we will use the Galileo board for more complex applications in fields such as the Internet of Things, home automation, and robotics.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Setting Up the Galileo Board and the Development Environment, demonstrates how to completely set up the development environment to build and use all the projects that you will find in this book.

Chapter 2, Creating a Weather Measurement and Data Logging Station, covers how to use the inputs of the Intel Galileo board. As an example, we will make a simple weather measurement station that will log data on an SD card.

Chapter 3, Controlling Outputs Using the Galileo Board, covers how to control different devices that can be connected to the Galileo board, such as a servomotor.

Chapter 4, Monitoring Data Remotely, teaches you how to use the Ethernet port of the Galileo board and create a measurement station that can be accessed from your local network.

Chapter 5, Interacting with Web APIs, covers how to connect the Galileo board to the Internet and interact with Web APIs to add more functionalities to the board.

Chapter 6, Internet of Things with Intel Galileo, covers using the Galileo board to create applications in the very exciting field of Internet of Things.

Chapter 7, Controlling Your Galileo Projects from Anywhere, teaches you how to control your Galileo projects from any web browser, wherever you are in the world.

Chapter 8, Displaying the Number of Unread Gmail E-mails on an LCD Screen, lets you use what you learned so far and build an application to display the number of unread e-mails you have in your Gmail inbox on an external LCD screen.

Chapter 9, Automated Remote Gardening with Intel Galileo, covers building another application based on the Galileo board—a complete management system for garden irrigation. You will also be able to monitor it from anywhere in the world.

Chapter 10, Building a Complete Home Automation System, lets you use what you learned so far in this book to build a project in an exciting field—home automation. We will see how to use the Galileo board as the hub of a home automation system.

Chapter 11, Building a Mobile Robot Controlled by the Intel Galileo Board, demonstrates the use of the Galileo board as the "brain" of a mobile robot.

Chapter 12, Controlling the Galileo Board from the Web in Real Time Using MQTT, will let you discover the MQTT protocol that we will use to control the board in real time from a web browser.

What you need for this book

For this entire book, you will need an Intel Galileo board. In the first chapter of this book, you will learn how to install all the required software to configure your board.

You will also need a computer running Windows, OS X, or Linux, as this will be needed to configure your Galileo board.

Who this book is for

This book is intended for those who want to build exciting projects using the Intel Galileo board. For example, it is for people who are already experienced in using more classic Arduino boards, and want to extend their knowledge to the Intel Galileo board.

It is also for people who want to learn about electronics and programming; the Intel Galileo is the perfect platform for this.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "To install this Arduino library, simply place the whole library folder inside the /libraries folder of your main Arduino installation folder."

A block of code is set as follows:

var pubnub = require("pubnub")({
    ssl           : true,  // <- enable TLS Tunneling over TCP
    publish_key   : "your_publish_key",
    subscribe_key : "your_subscribe_key"
});

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

unzip ngrok.zip

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "We will configure our data source here. Select Dweet.io and type in the name of your device."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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