Internet of Things - are you going to take that Raspberry Pi out of the closet again?

Reading up on the world of Internet of Things - how does it work and where do you start?

Devices have long since ceased to be there just to do the regular work they were once intended to do. They can now communicate, store data and make connections. Internet of Things doesn't have to be difficult if your software is already secure and reliable in the Cloud. IoT stands for innovation, cost reduction, smart monitoring, process optimization and collaboration between people and tech. Want to read up further? Do so on our website or through Microsoft's tutorials:  

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/iot-hub-raspberry-pi-kit-node-get-started
  Super handy tutorial of a Raspberry with sensors (or simulation) hanging directly on the cloud.
• ‍https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vsciot-vscode.azure-iot-tools
  Extension for VS Code to communicate directly with Azure's Raspberry and/or IoT portal.
• ‍https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/tutorial-routing
  Messages that go to the cloud you want to store properly, this tutorial explains how.

Getting started with the Pasberry Pi, IoT Hub and more...

Azure DevOps, Git, Phyton, .NET, a Table Storage account, sensors, a Raspberry Pi, an RGB lamp.... all components that were needed for the Proof of Value. And then we got to work. How.  

1. The Raspberry Pi 3b is installed with a headless environment (Raspberry Pi OS Lite, 32-bit).

2. The sensors were connected to the Raspberry Pi. Data from the sensors was retrieved via a Python 3 Web API, TeamPlantAPI. During the development process, it emerged that the SGP30 sensor is not well supported by .NET 5.0, and the various .NET IoT Libraries.  

Building support for the SGP30 yourself takes a lot of time. It was therefore chosen to use Python to read this sensor and make the data available via a Web API. Python is used in many projects working with a Raspberry Pi and sensors. There is a wide choice of libraries, which support a large number of sensors. There is also an active community and thus a lot of documentation available.

3. Running on the Raspberry Pi is the .Net Console Application, TeamPlant. It retrieves sensor data from the TeamPlant API every 15 minutes.

4. The sensor data, or a measurement, is compared with the threshold values defined in a json document in the project. If the values of the measurement are not good, the LCD display displays a message with the action to perform and the RGB light changes color.

So the question is: Are you grabbing your Raspberry Pi out of the closet again, too? And what will you be working on?

Proof of Value - TeamPlant

We hear you thinking... TeamPlant? Yes, that's what we're calling the product that can provide value to our colleagues' work environment. The solution will soon be suitable for any space or within a smart city. Maud has even already developed her own logo for it....  

This is part 1 of a blog series of 2. Soon the tech deep dive - more on the Azure Cloud and security side behind this IoT case.