Exploring BeagleBone: Tools and Techniques for Building with Embedded Linux

CHAPTER 10 The Internet of Things

In this chapter you are introduced to the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT). Two new sensors are discussed—a simple temperature sensor and a more complex Bluetooth low‐energy sensor. Using the BBB, these sensors are the example things that are connected to the Internet. Several different IoT communications architectures are described: The first architecture configures the BBB to be a web server that uses server‐side scripting to display sensor data. Next, custom C/C++ code is described that can push sensor data to the Internet and to platform as a service (PaaS) offerings, such as ThingSpeak and Xively. Finally, a client/server pair for high‐speed Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) socket communication is described. The latter part of the chapter introduces some techniques for managing distributed BBB sensors, and physical networking topics, including connecting the BBB to the Internet using Wi‐Fi; setting the BBB to have a static IP address; and using Power over Ethernet (PoE) with the BBB. By the end of this chapter you should appreciate the power of the BBB to leverage Linux software in order to build complex network‐attached devices, and you should be able to build your own IoT devices.

Equipment Required for This Chapter:

• BeagleBone Black
• Analog Devices TMP36 temperature sensor
• Texas Instruments SensorTag with Bluetooth adapter (optional)
• Linux‐compatible USB Wi‐Fi adapter

Further details on this chapter are available at www.exploringbeaglebone.com/chapter10/ ...