Presented at OSHCamp 2015, as part of Wuthering Bytes at Hebden Bridge While the definition of the term IoT (i.e: Internet of Things) is as cloudy as the “cloud”, everyone seems to be doing it. With excitement levels reaching stratospheric levels, the amount of buzzword-driven articles and colourful (and oh so unnecessary) abstract vector drawings that depict toasters communicating with cars have essentially made lives of many engineers who just want to build things a living hell. This talk will strip back the layers of marketing and aim to answer the question: “Which hardware platform should you use for building connected devices?”. With the plethora of chips/single board computers and specifically IoT-branded offerings out there, the platform choice does get a little difficult at times. By breaking down the application at hand into certain key requirement categories, this process could be simplified. There will also be mention of some of the most popular hardware platforms and how they differ from each other.

1. Confusion of Things
The IoT Hardware Kerfuffle
Omer Kilic ~ @OmerK
OSHCamp 2015 - 26/09/2015

2. omer.kilic.name

3. EVERYTHING*
IS AWESOME
* almost
ESP8266 die
zeptobars.ru

4. <rant>

13. / platf m/ˈ ɔː

14. IoT Components
● Devices
– “Nodes”, “Hubs”, ...
● Device Management
– Registration, provisioning, orchestration, ...
● Data Services
– Collection, storage, analytics, ….
● Communication Endpoints
– Device/User APIs, …

15. Key Constraints (I)
● Connectivity
– How does the device...
● ...get to a central node/hub?
● ...get to the cloud?
– How can the users...
● ...control the device?
● ...set up the device?
● Processing Requirements
– Might require suitable co-processor or a SoC with relevant
peripherals

16. Key Constraints (II)
● Power Consumption
– Battery powered, plugged in to the wall?
● Physical Size
– Pocketable or wall mounted?
● Cost
– Device and operational

17. Should I use a...
– Raspberry Pi
– Arduino
– Beaglebone
– mbed
– Wandboard
– ...

18. Device Categories
● “Small” Embedded
● “Large” Embedded
● Linux capable SoC
● PC-class devices

19. ATMega328

20. ESP8266 Single Chip WiFi SoC
(More on this at 10:40)

21. BCM2835 (Raspberry Pi)

22. SoCs for AP and Router Platforms

23. SoCs for AP and Router Platforms

24. Key Constraints (Review)
● Connectivity
● Processing Requirements
● Power Consumption
● Physical Size
● Cost (Device and Operational)

25. Hardware Platform chosen dictates...
● Language/framework used
● Programming/data model
● Security and firmware updates
● System characteristics
● ...

26. Thank you!
@OmerK