8

I want to get started implementing IoT stuff. I do not have experience with it so far, but am learning fast.
I am imagining my setup as follows:

Proposed Setup

Different wireless sensors (Temperature, Humidity, ...) should be connected to an IoT Gateway via BL (or BLE). The IoT Gateway should push the sensor information to an Open-Source IoT Platform - probably via Wi-Fi & MQTT. The Open-Source IoT Platform should feature a Rule Engine & expose a REST API.

Hardware

  • Arduino Uno R3 with DHT22 (Temperature Sensor) & HC-05 (Bluetooth Slave) as my Sensor.

  • Raspberry Pi 3B with HC-05 (Bluetooth Master) as IoT Gateway.

  • IoT Platform should be hosted in the Cloud on AWS or somewhere.

Questions:

  • Is this setup feasible and does it make sense?
  • What Software to use for the IoT Gateway?
  • Is the IoT Gateway software dependent on the IoT Platform that I use?
  • What Open Source IoT Platform to use?

I was thinking about "thingworx", as it is kind of the biggest one. "Kaa" does not have a rule engine as far as I read. "thingboards.io" also looks really nice from what I can see.
What steps do I need to take to implement this? How do I actually do this?

While these questions might be rather specific, keep in mind, I have absolutely no idea about this stuff. I don't own anything besides the Raspberry Pi 3B - which I won at a hackathon and haven't used so far.

Once I have the information in the IoT Platform and can access it with REST (or can publish it from the platform to an MQTT Broker), I will be able to implement my application. Ideally the setup would allow me to change the IoT Platform with minimal effort. I mean that's what standards (IoT Gateway, Bluetooth, MQTT) are for, right?

P.S.: IoT Gateway and IoT Platform tags are missing

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    Welcome. You might consider asking each of your questions separately with the relevant information — we generally discourage multiple big questions in one post (see How to Ask for more info and some tips). It might also help us if you briefly specify what sort of thing you'd like to do with your setup; what's your goal? You should edit to reduce the number of questions you've asked here and potentially ask more questions once you've got an answer to this one. This will avoid any answers becoming excessively long or broad, covering multiple topics, and helps future people searching. – Aurora0001 Dec 19 '17 at 17:58
  • Hey. I see your concern, but kinda feel like that the workflow from Sensor -> Gateway -> IoT Platform should be a single questions as it is heavily connected to each other in this regard. If I was to create a question for each step, I guess this would lead to issues integrating the steps again. Also I thought that the setup: Sensor->Gateway-Platform was the standard setup for IoT applications and am really wondering that I cannot find any further information on that regard. – HideAndSeek Dec 20 '17 at 22:24
  • @HideAndSeek The requirement that you listed is what exactly I have to implement. The gateway will push the data to the IoT cloud platform through MQTT/Rest. I am new to the IoT platform like you. Did you finish your implementation? Please give me a suggestion to achieve this. Thanks. – SKK Mar 15 '18 at 8:06
4

There a million ways to skin this cat. Best for you at this stage to just try to get something working. Beyond that you can worry about "right" and "suitable" ways.

Your setup is feasible and makes sense.

Maybe you're running into trouble because you're expecting to find some software off the shelf? Since the DHT22, the Uno, the HC-05 and the Pi are all disparate devices with their own particular requirements, it's highly unlikely you'll find something plug and play. That's okay, it just means you have to write the glue software yourself.

Consider each of the interfaces from sensor to cloud and tackle each one in turn. Start by getting the Uno polling the DHT22 for a value. Then get the Bluetooth comms working. Then the Wifi and MQTT. Fire up Thingworx and ingest some MQTT packets. Then put it all together. You'll find lots of examples of each bit, so concentrate on one at a time.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.