The Internet of Things (IoT) is a powerful tool that can connect machines to achieve a particular function. This has a strong overlap with robotics and artificial intelligence. It often uses low power micro-controllers that can have a range of sensors and be able to control switches, lights, motors etc. They can be used in the home and even in cities often called smart homes/cities.

Machine to Machine

At its simplest incarnation it is two computers talking together over the internet. IoT has sometimes been described as Machine to Machine ir M2M for short. There are lots of devices that can facilitate this. Mostly they are in the form of small micro-controllers that have a wifi or bluetooth component. A series of boards called ESP32 are extremely common (and relatively inexpensive). Arduino do have the Arduino Nano 33 IoT board which is a good one to start with. Yet even now the New Arduino Uno R4 has that functionality. you don’t need two devices but you do need a way of interacting with the device over the internet using a cloud based system. Arduino provide such a thing for free (limited).

Arduino IoT Cloud

To get started with the Internet of Things you need a device and you need to be able to connect to the internet, not just your wifi in your home, office or workshop. Arduino provide a cloud based system so that you can do this safely and easily connecting your devices as the Internet of Things. This is available for complete beginners and experts alike. There is a free version (so need to buy anything) and alsp paid plans depending on what features you want or need (see creep shot below).

The Arduino IoT Cloud has had a revamp recently, if you have used it in the past you may notice some changes, if you have never used it then you are in the right place to start that journey. Some of the key elements in getting to grips with using it are:

Things

Dashboard

Devices

Triggers

Cloud Variables

Which we will cover in due course but you can click on the link below and visit the Arduino Cloud part of their website for more information

Arduino Cloud part of the website

There is a video on YouTube from the DroneBot Workshop (very recently released) that is worth watching if you have to time.