No matter how innovative it sounds, the Internet of Things (IoT) is quickly gaining traction in individual and commercial use today. People like the idea of creating smart ecosystems that can be navigated from a smartphone or another universal control, linking a variety of tech devices into a single, coherently functioning mechanism.
Thus, IoT is here to stay, with the Internet of Things ideas finding various applications in the spheres one couldn’t imagine just yesterday:
- Autonomous cars
- Industrial security systems
- Smart home ecosystems
- Fitness trackers and a great range of wearables
- IoT-enhanced agriculture
Naturally, forward-looking businesses think of IoT product development as a way of entering the booming market with projects promising reasonable revenues. So, what’s trending in this market? What do individuals and businesses need? How to start IoT development from scratch, and what experts to engage to come up with a viable product? Here is a brief guide on the IoT project steps and phases everyone will need to cover.
Steps to Create an IoT Project
Embracing IoT seems a very attractive plan, but you need to be clear about why you need it. Are you planning to develop a system that you’ll further monetize by selling it to clients? Do you wish to create a customized solution for your own business? Are you an individual looking for a smart home/office ecosystem and wishing to get a custom-tailored product for your specific settings and needs? All these goals are different, so you will need to set the proper focus first to achieve any of them.
#1 Determine the project based on IoT
As we’ve just explained, you need to determine what exactly you need from this technology. Are you a creator or a user? To achieve this goal, you need to contextualize IoT and clarify the key components of your future system. If you’re a business owner, you need to be clear about IoT’s role within your business strategy. Once the plan is ready, the rest will be about technicalities.
It’s also essential to plan all components of your future system, even for simple IoT projects. By default, such systems include hardware (physical devices collecting data from the environment), software (the technology providing linkage between your hardware and the cloud), and the cloud solution (a cloud-based server processing and storing your data, giving commands to the hardware based on the input data analysis). Once all these points are clarified, it’s time to go on with the planning process.
#2 Choose the Technology
No matter whether you’re planning IoT projects for beginners or wish to create something more advanced, you’ll still need to come to grips with technology first. When choosing among IoT technologies, you should make choices in three distinct categories:
- Sensors and microcontrollers
- Service providers
- Software for device connectivity
Choices in all three categories should be consistent enough to allow seamless integration, thus ensuring that all devices and software interoperate without a problem.
When choosing the platform for your project, make sure that it fits your long-term goals. For instance, if you’re planning to scale in the future, you need to double-check whether the provider is flexible in these terms. You are quite flexible in pricing as most cloud platforms give different B2B and B2C packages depending on the capacity you require. Besides, the selected platform should be compatible with other tech products and services in the niche; this will enable closing tech gaps with related software/hardware alternatives.
#3 Develop a Methodology
Once you determine the goals and choose a tech stack required to achieve them, it’s vital to formulate the steps to take you from point A to point B. In other words, you need IoT design methodology steps, which will form the essential phases of project work and will serve as assessment milestones.
#4 Develop Hardware
The project’s hardware is the central element of your system. Your microcontrollers and processors will function as its brain, giving orders to other body parts based on the information they receive and process. At present, you can choose among the following microcontroller types:
- Arduino Uno/Mega is highly suitable for prototyping; it simplifies the development process.
- STM32F is the most commonly used microcontroller type allowing easy IoT system customization.
- ESP boards are cheap and effective, ensuring good Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity among the IoT system’s components.
If you opt for a microprocessor-based system instead, we recommend trying Raspberry Pi because of its simple navigation with the help of PC-like OSs and Beagle bone for its technical superiority and richness of features.
Besides the central unit, you will need to set up a range of sensors for collecting data to inform the system’s actions. These elements are diverse, chosen depending on your system’s purpose:
- Smoke sensors
- Temperature sensors
- Pressure, proximity sensors
- Relays signaling about closing and opening doors, and many others.
#5 Develop Software
Once you’re done with the hardware part, it’s time to choose the software tools that will govern your system. To date, the following software solutions are used in IoT production:
- Arduino framework is a perfect match for the Arduino hardware, supporting various boards and chips you might want to include in the system.
- Amazon FreeRTOS is an instrument for AWS IoT connection that provides numerous valuable features.
- FreeRTOS is more universal than the previously mentioned tool, connecting to numerous chips and microcontrollers.
- Apache Mynewt is an excellent solution for wireless IoT systems.
All these software options ensure a smooth operating experience by giving an OS-like navigation board to the user. Some of them even run on Linux and Windows, making their operation way more user-friendly.
#6 Ensure Proper Connectivity
Now that you have both components at hand, you need to make them work together, which is attainable via ensuring their connectivity. The connectivity technology choice depends on the settings where the system will be used and its expected throughput. The options to consider are:
- Wi-Fi – it’s the easiest but the least reliable method for connectivity. You can use it in indoor systems, such as a home or office.
- RFID/NFC – this one is more suitable for enterprise or industrial IoT applications as it reads the data from card-based access systems.
- GSM/GPRS – this method is suitable for a range of outdoor IoT systems with various purposes.
- NB-IoT – it’s a low-capacity solution developed specifically for IoT connectivity, so it’s limited in use.
- Bluetooth – the best option for connecting wearables and smart home/office devices to a single control panel (e.g., a smartphone).
As you can see, each of these options has limitations inhibiting the system’s scalability. Thus, we recommend using LoRaWAN connectivity tools for greater-scale projects (e.g., industrial facilities or large public infrastructure objects) as they can guarantee stable connective and extensive area coverage.
Developing the IoT Project
As you can see, IoT project development is not an easy process. However, it is pretty rewarding as it allows you to stay competitive and offer or enjoy tech innovation in the best sense of this word. Business benefits of IoT are also evident, giving forward-looking firms an upper hand in managing the pressing business challenges and adapting to the quickly evolving business landscape via:
- Greater automation
- Better control of all processes across departments
- Improved business productivity
- A broader spectrum of business opportunities
- Cost savings
- Quicker completion of the majority of vital processes
- Better data management
- Robust data analytics
- Rigorous digital security
- Optimal asset optimization
Are you interested in launching your own easy IoT projects? It’s never been simpler than with the expertise and outstanding turnkey solutions at https://aduk.de/. By turning to ADUK experts, you can harness the IoT process and embrace the rising power of IoT systems for your business or individual use. ADUK can create and implement an IoT project for you from scratch by undertaking hardware and firmware development, meeting your specific goals, requirements, and budget. Coming to ADUK, you get expert assistance on all technical issues and full-cycle project support for its successful realization from idea to launch.
