Learning IoT with Particle Photon and Electron

Rashid Khan, Kajari Ghoshdastidar, Ajith Vasudevan

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781785885297
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Informatica
• Subtopic: Informatica generale

Develop applications on one of the most popular platforms for IoT using Particle Photon and Electron with this fast-paced guide

About This Book

• Get an introduction to IoT architecture, command-line build tools and applications of IoT devices and sensors
• Design and develop connected IoT applications using Particle Photon and Electron in a step-by-step manner, gaining an entry point into the field of IoT
• Get tips on troubleshooting IoT applications

Who This Book Is For

This book is for developers, IoT enthusiasts and hobbyists who want to enhance their knowledge of IoT machine-to-machine architecture using Particle Photon and Electron, and implement cloud-based IoT projects.

What You Will Learn

• Setup the Particle Photon and Electron on the cloud using the command-line tools
• Build and deploy applications on the Photon and Electron using the Web-based IDE
• Setup a local cloud server to interact with Particle Photon and Electron
• Connect various components and sensors to Particle Photon and Electron
• Tinker with the existing firmware and deploy a custom firmware on the Photon and Electron
• Setup communication between two or more Particle Photon and Electron
• Debug and troubleshoot Particle Photon and Electron projects
• Use webhooks to communicate with various third-party server applications

In Detail

IoT is basically the network of physical devices, vehicles, buildings and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.. The number of connected devices is growing rapidly and will continue to do so over years to come. By 2020, there will be more than 20 billion connected devices and the ability to program such devices will be in high demand. Particle provides prototyping boards for IoT that are easy to program and deploy. Most importantly, the boards provided by Particle can be connected to the Internet very easily as they include Wi-Fi or a GSM module.

Starting with the basics of programming Particle Photon and Electron, this book will take you through setting up your local servers and running custom firmware, to using the Photon and Electron to program autonomous cars. This book also covers in brief a basic architecture and design of IoT applications. It gives you an overview of the IoT stack. You will also get information on how to debug and troubleshoot Particle Photon and Electron and set up your own debugging framework for any IoT board. Finally, you'll tinker with the firmware of the Photon and Electron by modifying the existing firmware and deploying them to your boards.

By the end of this book, you should have a fairly good understanding of the IoT ecosystem and you should be able to build standalone projects using your own local server or the Particle Cloud Server.

Style and approach

This project-based guide contains easy-to-follow steps to program Particle Photon and Electron. You will learn to build connected applications with the help of projects of increasing complexity, and with each project, a new concept in IoT is taught.

Learning IoT with Particle Photon and Electron

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Learning IoT with Particle Photon and Electron

Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: September 2016

Production reference: 1070916

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham

B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-78588-529-7

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Authors Rashid Khan Kajari Ghoshdastidar Ajith Vasudevan	Project Coordinator Suzanne Coutinho
Commissioning Editor Neil Alexander	Proofreader Safis Editing
Acquisition Editors Aaron Lazar Reshma Raman	Indexer Rekha Nair
Content Development Editor Pooja Mhapsekar	Graphics Jason Monteiro
Technical Editor Sunith Shetty	Production Coordinator Aparna Bhagat
Copy Editor Sonia Mathur

About the Authors

Rashid Khan is a programmer living in Bangalore. He is one of the founders of Yellow Messenger, a company that specializes in building bots for commerce. Prior to founding Yellow Messenger, he worked at EdgeVerve Systems, where he built backend systems to support IoT devices. He is an open source enthusiast and loves to experiment with new technologies. He is involved with a number of open source organizations, such as GNOME, Mono, Tomboy Notes, and Banshee and has built a Django (Python) library for Apache Spark called Django-LibSpark.

His interests lie in the field of Artificial Intelligence and interfacing software with real-world objects. Apart from programming, he loves to cycle and play tennis.

I am really thankful to my mother and father for providing the motivation and guidance to help me push myself constantly. My co-founders at Yellow Messenger, Anik, Raghu, and Kishore, provided constant support to experiment with new ideas for this book, and I would like to extend my gratitude for that. I would like to thank Rajeshwari Ganesan, my manager at EdgeVerve Systems, for giving me the opportunity to author this book. I would like to extend my gratitude to Ajith and Kajari, my coauthors, without whom this book would not be possible. This book would be incomplete without the guidance and mentorship of my friends and co-workers at EdgeVerve. I am extremely thankful to Chetan, who helped a lot with the sensors and data, and Nelly (Jeonghyun Kang), who helped with the firmware and testing out the initial projects.

Kajari Ghoshdastidar got her PhD in wireless sensor networks in 2009 and has been active in IoT-related hobby project work since then. She has worked in the software industry for the last 6 years as a technology architect, software developer, and a computer scientist. She is a technology geek, takes part in hackathons, and is always exploring new technologies and electronic gadgets.

She is currently part of the systems engineering team at EdgeVerve, working as a computer scientist.

First of all, I would like to thank Rajeshwari Ganesan, my mentor and manager at Edgeverve, for inspiring me to pen this book and closely guiding me all the way, and Rashid and Ajith for being the most awesome coauthors I could wish for. This book wouldn’t be complete without the support of my colleagues at Edgeverve, Chetan Kumar Velumurugan, who helped us a lot with his deep knowledge of sensors and accessories, and Nelly (Jeonghyun Kang), who helped with setting up and testing out the initial projects.

Ajith Vasudevan is an electronics, computer, and IoT enthusiast who likes to apply his knowledge in these fields to make modern living easy for himself and others around him. He has a bachelor's of technology degree in electrical and electronics engineering. He was interested in automation and IoT even before the term IoT became commonplace. He designed and built an automatic overhead-tank motor operator using $1 worth of electronic parts back in 1995, which is operating at his parent’s home to this day. He has automated and made it simple and efficient to operate many household appliances, for example, an automatic geyser switch that turns itself off after 10 minutes, saving electricity. It can be set to switch on at any specified time or can be controlled from anywhere. Today, even his friends and neighbors use this system.

Ajith has worked in the heavy electrical industry before joining his current employer, Infosys Technologies Limited, in the year 2000. He is presently a senior computer scientist at EdgeVerve Systems, a subsidiary of Infosys. At work, he enjoys programming and has done so for over a decade and a half.

I would like to thank Rajeshwari Ganesan for introducing me to the coauthors and Packt Publishing and for giving me the opportunity to coauthor this book. It has been an enjoyable and great learning experience for me.

www.PacktPub.com

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Preface

Devices made by Particle (the IoT company formerly known as Spark) are one of the most popular IoT platforms for hobbyists and professionals alike. This fast-paced guide will help you develop IoT-based applications using two of Particle's popular boards—the Photon and the Electron.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing IoT ...