Internet of Things – time to dust off that Raspberry Pi?

Getting into the world of the Internet of Things – how does it work and where do you start?

Devices are no longer just for the routine tasks they were originally designed for. Nowadays, they can communicate, store data, and make connections. The Internet of Things doesn't have to be complicated if your software is already safe and sound in the Cloud. IoT is all about innovation, cost reduction, smart monitoring, process optimization, and collaboration between humans and tech. Want to read more? Check out our website or dive into these Microsoft tutorials:  

• https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/iot-hub-raspberry-pi-kit-node-get-started
  A super handy tutorial for a Raspberry Pi with sensors (or simulation) that connects directly to the cloud.
• ‍https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=vsciot-vscode.azure-iot-tools
  A VS Code extension to communicate directly with your Raspberry Pi and/or the Azure IoT portal.
• ‍https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/iot-hub/tutorial-routing
  You want to store the messages sent to the cloud properly; this tutorial explains how.

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

Azure DevOps, Git, Python, .NET, a Table Storage account, sensors, a Raspberry Pi, an RGB light... all the components needed for our Proof of Value. And then we got to work. How?  

1. The Raspberry Pi 3b was set up with a headless environment (Raspberry Pi OS Lite, 32-bit).

2. The sensors are connected to the Raspberry Pi. Sensor data was retrieved via a Python 3 Web API, TeamPlantAPI. During the development process, we discovered that the SGP30 sensor isn't well supported by .NET 5.0 and the various .NET IoT libraries.  

Building support for the SGP30 from scratch takes a lot of time. We therefore decided to use Python to read the sensor and make the data available via a Web API. Python is used in many projects involving Raspberry Pis and sensors. There’s a wide range of libraries available that support a huge number of sensors. Plus, there’s an active community, which means there’s plenty of documentation out there.

3. The .NET console application, TeamPlant, runs on the Raspberry Pi. It fetches sensor data from the TeamPlant API every 15 minutes.

4. The sensor data—or measurement—is compared against the threshold values defined in a JSON document within the project. If the measurement values are off, the LCD display shows a notification with the required action, and the RGB light changes color.

So, the question is: are you going to dust off your Raspberry Pi? And what are you going to build with it?

Proof of Value - TeamPlant

We hear you thinking... TeamPlant? Yep, that’s what we call the product that brings value to our colleagues' workspace. Soon, the solution will be ready for any room or even a smart city. Maud has even whipped up a logo for it already...  

This is part 1 of a 2-part blog series. Stay tuned for the tech deep dive coming soon—we’ll be covering the Azure Cloud and security side of this IoT case.