38
votes
Accepted
What is the simplest programmable IoT device that can connect to Wi-Fi?
Check out ESP modules. I've 3 NodeMCU boards running at home checking temperature and humidity, and controlling power sockets and led strips. NodeMCU can be found for about 4-5$.
If you want proper ...
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21
votes
Accepted
Selecting a microcontroller for a battery operated data collection project
A general process of microcontroller selection.
Sum up your requirements towards the microcontroller. For example in this case:
1 hardware timer, to measure time between trigger and echo pulses.
2 ...
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20
votes
Is there a big jump between prototyping on a Pi, and using a microcontroller?
It depends on what you're trying to do.
The biggest gap is that a microcontroller you mentioned (such as Arduino) does not run a multitasking operating system such as Linux. This means if your ...
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18
votes
What is the simplest programmable IoT device that can connect to Wi-Fi?
There is Omega2 from the company Onion. They cost 5$. They are still crowdfunding, therefore I'm not sure about their reliability and I haven't used one..
As @Aurora0001 pointed out, Onion completed ...
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16
votes
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Cheap IoT microcontroller with PoE
Orange Pi Zero is cheap (7$ + shipping), can be hacked to run on passive PoE, supports TCP/UDP over on-board ethernet and wireless and has a few I/Os.
It's not exactly a microcontroller in my book, ...
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13
votes
What is the simplest programmable IoT device that can connect to Wi-Fi?
As an even cheaper alternative to the NodeMCU from Luis answer I would like to mention the the bare ESP-12E or ESP-12F*, the module that is used on the NodeMCU. They are even cheaper than the NodeMCU, ...
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13
votes
What is the simplest programmable IoT device that can connect to Wi-Fi?
One that I have been keeping an eye on, but haven't tried yet, is VoCore. It was also crowdfunded like the Omega2.
It promises a $4-$18 device, but the ones available start at $17.99. What is relevant ...
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12
votes
Accepted
How can I implement MQTT on an STM32F030K6T6?
Is it possible to implement MQTT on this device?
Any device that has TCP/IP layer can implement MQTT.
What requirements should a microcontroller match to be able to use/run MQTT?
You need to ask ...
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12
votes
Accepted
What do I need to create my own personal cloud for IoT devices?
Maybe I missed the point of the question, but I think this is a good start at an answer.
You need three things, at a minimum.
An always-on compute node to aggregate your data. This does not need to ...
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12
votes
What do I need to create my own personal cloud for IoT devices?
Lightweight devices, and couple of bytes date rates ask for using MQTT, as it has already been mentioned. Your sensor nodes could be based on standalone ESP8266 modules which are powerful enough to ...
- 7,553
12
votes
Accepted
Is there a big jump between prototyping on a Pi, and using a microcontroller?
Adding to George's comprehensive answer and point 2) hardware support. Even if the desired hardware (e.g. ethernet, WiFi, SD card) is added to the microcontroller/Arduino via shields or similar ...
- 2,479
11
votes
Which microcontroller and programming language should I use for an Internet-enabled weather display?
The Onion Omega 2 claims to be the smallest Linux computer in the world. That claim may not quite be true (see the vocore2 below, for example) but in my experience it's got to be in the smallest 3. ...
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11
votes
Cheap IoT microcontroller with PoE
You do not need PoE for your setup. Just use two wires from Ethernet cable to power your controllers.
Ethernet cables have four unused wires: 4 (blue), 5 (white with blue), 7 (white with brown) and 8 ...
- 261
11
votes
How can I implement MQTT on an STM32F030K6T6?
The mbed mmqt library doesn't seem to document any memory requirements as likely to be limiting, and can reasonably be assumed to be targetted at this sort of small-footprint device as an endpoint. ...
- 10.4k
11
votes
What do I need to create my own personal cloud for IoT devices?
You've questioned both previous answers about the need for a controller/hub. Consider that to make things happen, you need rules to exist. If you want to push a big red button to open a garage door, ...
- 2,422
11
votes
What is the simplest programmable IoT device that can connect to Wi-Fi?
Defining battery life (and perhaps battery size) will tell you how long your thing has to last. That may then lead you to decide to only switch it on when (a) you need to take a reading and (b) when ...
- 211
10
votes
What is the power implication of encrypting my sensor traffic?
There are a variety of encryption methods you could use to secure your traffic, and each one has a slightly different power usage, so I'm going to pick a couple of popular choices. The methodology I ...
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10
votes
Use a Particle Electron with Wi-Fi while in development
The Particle Electron has three free UART lines of which you can use one to connect an ESP8266 based Wi-Fi module.
The ESP can be controlled via AT-Commands which is not that difficult to use. The ...
- 7,553
10
votes
Accepted
What will happen if I use Class 4 SD card, instead of recommended Class 10 for Intel Galileo?
Any read/write operations will be slower. However, if you don't want to stream Full HD videos or other heavy content that requires that kind of data transmission rates you'll be fine. Most of the time ...
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9
votes
Cheap IoT microcontroller with PoE
Arduino do a board with built in PoE, but at double the price of a Pi last time I looked, I would not consider it cheap. And sounds physically bigger than you are looking for.
The is also the Arduino ...
- 12.5k
9
votes
Accepted
Cryptographic algorithms for PIC16 microcontrollers
You may be interested in the Skein family of cryptographic hash functions, which are designed to be efficiently implemented on a wide variety of small and large processors. You can trade RAM for speed,...
- 2,422
9
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to run and train a neural network on an 8-bit microcontroller?
According the first paper, running is not a problem. That was the purpose. Only there is a limitation on the maximum weights:
Currently the limitation on the architecture embedded in this ...
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9
votes
How can I do incremental updates with a flash that can only be erased block-wise?
The simple answer is yes - you need enough blocks of flash to support bootloader and A/B code images if you want high reliability. Before activating the new image, you can write the whole thing, ...
- 10.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Why don't we have more 3G+ modem options available?
I expect the situation will change as the demand for NB-IoT picks up, but there are several factors conspiring against your ideal.
Only modules are viable unless you have access to ~$1e6 in test ...
- 10.4k
9
votes
Power reduction for Raspberry Pi GPS/GSM tracker
I'll assume that the processing requirements on the device are near enough zero. It sounds like you're using some acceleration input to determine how often to wake up the GSM device.
Ideally, you ...
- 10.4k
9
votes
Is there a big jump between prototyping on a Pi, and using a microcontroller?
YES, it is a big jump from programming in Python to programming using the typical C-based language tools on micro-controller. In fact, in many cases you may need to write some, if not all, of your ...
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9
votes
Is there a big jump between prototyping on a Pi, and using a microcontroller?
Yes, big difference
The difference is like day and night, both in regards to hardware and software. No valid comparison at all.
When to use which
Use an Arduino, if...
Space constraints make a Pi ...
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9
votes
What is the simplest programmable IoT device that can connect to Wi-Fi?
AWS IoT Button
The AWS IoT Button is a programmable button based on the Amazon Dash Button hardware. This simple Wi-Fi device is easy to configure and designed for developers to get started with ...
- 191
8
votes
Making a smart light switch
By far the easiest route is to buy an exisiting product here which is sufficiently open that you can use a standard RF module to control them.
This is equivalent to having an MCU and switch ...
- 10.4k
8
votes
What factors to consider when selecting an integrated wifi MCU for a low powered edge device?
As your most important constraint is having a low power consumption, I think you are already paying attention to the 2 most important parameters: active mode current draw per frequency, and current ...
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible