iot on Bald Engineer

WiFi-Enabled LED detector tells me when my Dehumidifier is Full!

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 23:40:13 +0000

I created a Wi-Fi-enabled LED Detector using Nordic’s nRF7002 Design Kit (DK). Using this box, I can detect when LEDs on appliances, like my lab’s dehumidifier, are on. In other words, my non-IoT tool can send me messages over the Internet now! And, because the nRF7002 has a dual-band Wi-Fi antenna, it does so on my 5 GHz network. I ran into a number of issues with this project, and I expected that. Except for the RF part of the design, which works fine! Links to the design files are available on the post on the element14 Community.

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How to Profile Battery Usage for IoT Devices

Sat, 25 Jun 2022 13:08:00 +0000

When running on a battery, it is important to know what parts of your circuit draw the most current. Profiling is a process where you look at sections of code or interactions with hardware to see how much power each requires. In this video, James shows four tools (and their tradeoffs) when profiling IoT or Edge Machine Learning devices. See if it makes more sense for you to use a Digital Multimeter (DMM), Power Supply with history graphs, an oscilloscope

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IoT: Intelligent Outsourcing

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 20:37:14 +0000

Whether you are developing a WiFi-enabled coffee maker, a sensor to detect rainfall, or a livestock tracking drone, an IoT device will follow the same product development cycle. A common mistake that engineers will make is trying to own the development at each stage, at least up until “deliver.” Who can blame us? The idea of delegating any part of our new product introduction can be daunting. Delegating, or outsourcing can be a powerful tool. It allows you to focus on the elements of your process that only you can do. Let others handle the rest. If your core contribution is the machine learning algorithm, then focus your effort there. Spending time designing the enclosure, or negotiating with suppliers, or even laying out the printed circuit board is a waste. Let the people who excel in each of those areas apply their expertise to your product.

Multiple MQTT Topics with Arduino PubSubClient

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 13:00:22 +0000

In my Arduino MQTT Examples, I kept things simple by only subscribing to a single topic. One of the strengths of MQTT is that a device can subscribe (or publish) to multiple topics. The broker will sort things out. Even though my first example only showed one, it is straight forward to get the Arduino PubSubClient library to subscribe to Multiple MQTT topics. The quick answer is that you need to look at the MQTT response to find out which topic sent the payload.

Measure PWM Current with a Modified Moving Average

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 13:00:16 +0000

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) makes it possible to dim lights, control the speed of motors, and (with the help of filters) generate analog reference voltages. When measuring the voltage or current of a PWM signal, there are unique challenges. You can use this tutorial to measure PWM current with a modified moving average (MMA). As I’ve mentioned in a few posts, I’m working on an RGB LED IoT controller. Soon I’ll post some detailed information on that. In the meantime, one choice I made was to include an INA219 current sensor on the LED power supply. For prototyping, I’m using the Adafruit Breakout Board, but my final design uses the same parts integrated into a custom PCB.

Adafruit Temperature Sensor Comparison

Wed, 27 Jul 2016 15:00:32 +0000

Getting back to my IoT projects, I decided to pick up a temperature sensor. While looking through the Adafruit breakout boards, I found they offered nine different digital temperature sensors! This list is in addition to the analog TMP36 temperature sensor, so that’s ten. I needed an Adafruit Temperature Sensor comparison. With so many options, I quickly found myself getting lost between the various modules. The 10 I found all measured temperature and provided an I2C interface. Except for the MCP9808 board, they all made at least one other type of measurement. The MCP9808 is the cheapest digital temperature sensor breakout that Adafruit offers, and also the most accurate.

Hands-on with Arduino Create and Arduino IoT

Wed, 06 Apr 2016 13:00:00 +0000

This past weekend Arduino fans celebrated Arduino and Genuino Day 2016. In classrooms, maker spaces, and impromptu meet-ups around the world enginerds got together to learn and create with Arduino. At the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation on Berkeley’s Campus, I first heard that Arduino Create had been launched. In addition to hands-on learning workshops, there was a display of Arduino/Genuino projects by students. In the afternoon, three Arduino co-founders gave a short talk. David Mellis spoke on Machine Learning. Tom Igoe did his first talk on Technology and Humanities. Lastly, Massimo Banzi talked about IoT.

MQTT Introduction and Tutorial Part One

Wed, 17 Feb 2016 16:00:25 +0000

MQTT is an easy way for Internet of Things (IoT) devices to communicate with each other. This light-weight protocol can be used with a simple 8-bit Arduino to a Raspberry Pi to a multi-core PC to Amazon Web Services. It is that versatile. This MQTT Tutorial is broken into two parts. Part one is an MQTT Introduction. You’ll understand how publish/subscribe message brokering works. Next week, Part two will be a tutorial on using MQTT to communicate between a PC, Raspberry Pi, and ESP8266.

Raspberry Pi GUI Tutorial

Wed, 03 Feb 2016 17:58:53 +0000

My favorite Raspberry Pi add-on is the PiTFT from Adafruit. With it, you easily get a Raspberry Pi GUI interface and touch screen. The PiTFT software install is just a few things and it is good to go. Adafruit PiTFT - Click for more info This screen is what I needed for my IoT project. The Pi+Screen will act as the primary controller for all of my things. The problem is I didn’t know much about writing GUI applications in Linux. So what could I do to create a Raspberry Pi GUI?

IoT: Internet Of Nothing

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 14:00:44 +0000

IoT (n): Internet of Things Things that connect with the internet, to share information. Devices that communicate with each other. No wait. Nothing does. It’s the Internet Of Nothing! It continues to amaze me how few Internet of Things (IoT) devices actually communicate with each other. Isn’t Internet connectivity suppose to make it EASIER for things to talk? Computers have been communicating with the Internet for 45 years. Why can’t Light Bulbs from two manufacturers do it?

Is the Raspberry Pi Zero worth $5?

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 16:00:57 +0000

What makes the Raspberry Pi so attractive? At $35 it is an unbelievable value for a single board computer. Since its introduction, a price race to the bottom has begun. The C.H.I.P. claims to have started shipping the $9 computer. Which, many pointed out, doesn’t cost $9 once you add things like support for display. I would like to point out, I was an early backer and have yet to receive one.