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IoT Cloud a la Arduino
Source: https://dronebotworkshop.com
By Tam Hanna (Slovakia)
The Arduino IoT Cloud offers IoT application developers a convenient solution for implementing a cloud back end without having to struggle with MQTT. Curious? Let’s take a look. Lots of microcontroller applications nowadays involve an Internet of Things (IoT) application where information is disseminated via IoT cloud services and an MQTT broker. Creating this type of application using a local development environment like the traditional Arduino IDE can sometimes be awkward. The Arduino Cloud shifts the IDE up into the cloud so that your browser becomes a window into the IDE. We tried it out by sending a variable value to the cloud to make an LED flash on the bench. Then we tried to break it. The basis of all IoT devices is of course the Thing. In the Arduino IoT Cloud development environment, the Thing is a virtual object that exists in the cloud. In the real world, it is as an object such as a server, a controller board, or a similarly “intelligent” device [1]. Here your Thing is built in the cloud using an online editor to write a Sketch describing how it should behave and respond by using a whole range of Variables.
Who Will Use the Arduino IoT Cloud?
Before we begin, it’s important to acknowledge that the Arduino IoT Cloud is not an alternative for other dedicated cloud computing
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platforms such as Amazon AWS IoT Core, Microsoft IoT Hub, or Yandex IoT Core. If you have large numbers of devices and data to manage, these more established IoT cloud services are the way to go. At the introduction of the latest incarnation of The Arduino IoT cloud, Massimo Banzi, CTO at Arduino, expressed his ambitions for the platform saying that: “Arduino now offers a complete platform with the MKR family; providing a streamline way to create local IoT nodes and edge devices. These use a range of connectivity options and compatibility with third-party hardware, gateway and cloud systems. The Arduino IoT Cloud allows users to manage, configure and connect, not only Arduino hardware but also the vast majority of Linux-based devices — truly democratising IoT development.” Its support of the MKR IoT-targeted range of Arduino boards and some other popular third-party boards is a welcome addition and would make many IoT system developers give this accessible development platform a second look.
Setting Up the Hardware
Only the most basic plan of the four possible versions of the Arduino Cloud is free to use. You can check out the various plans and their features in Figure 1 and decide which package best meets your needs. Of interest to the maker community generally is Arduino Cloud’s support of third-party boards, such as the popular ESP8266 and ESP32 family of devices (Table 1), and the list of compatible platforms [2]. Driver libraries also allow various Linux-based systems to upload and download information to the Arduino cloud.
