A brief overview of affordable hardware development boards you can use for Internet of Things (IoT) and home automation projects, large or small.

1. Hackable Hardware for
the Internet of Things
(an incomplete overview, by Nicolas Saint-Arnaud)
April 2015

2. Overview
• What is the “Internet of Things” ?
• Components: processor, battery, I/O, wireless
• Development Boards
• Demos!

3. “The Internet of Things”
• Home Automation
• Wearables
• Everything else = IoT

4. Components
processor
Inputs and Outputs
(I/O)
battery wireless

5. Wireless Communication
• WiFi
• BLE: Bluetooth Low Energy
• Mesh networking in Home Automation:
Z-Wave, Zigbee (IEEE 802.15.4)

6. Development Boards
• Arduino
• Raspberry Pi
• LightBlue Bean
• mbientlab MetaWear
• Electric Imp
• LittleBits
• More…

7. Raspberry Pi
• $20 to $35
• Linux + Python
• HDMI out, audio out, USB
• up to 17 digital I/O pins
• WiFi USB $10
• camera module $25

8. LightBlue Bean
• $30
• BLE
• operates on coin battery ~1 week
• 6 digital I/O pins, 2 analog pins
• 3-axis accelerometer, temperature sensor
• Wireless programming (C language, Arduino compatible)
• iOS, Android, OSX, Windows 8

9. mbientlab MetaWear
• $45
• BLE
• comes with rechargeable
100mAH lithium battery
~ 1-2 weeks
• 4 analog/digital pins + 4 digital pins
• 26mm x 17mm x 2.5mm
• temperature sensor, vibrator
• iOS, Android

10. Electric Imp
• $30 + $13 breakout board
• WiFi with BlinkUp (TM)
• 2 analog/digital pins
+ 4 digital pins
• Squirrel Language
• Cloud infrastructure
• 32mm x 24mm x 2.1mm
• iOS, Android

11. LittleBits CloudBit
• $100 for CloudBit starter kit
• magnetic plug and play

12. • Intel Edison ~$50 WiFi, BLE, USB, GPIO
• Spark Photon ~$20 WiFi, GPIO
• … many more coming out

13. Troubleshooting Hardware
• Saleae Logic analysers
• starting at $109
• OSX, Windows, Linux
• https://www.saleae.com/

14. Hackable Hardware for
the Internet of Things
Nicolas Saint-Arnaud - nsaintarnaud@yahoo.com