IoT DCF255 Page | 9
Living in a Connected World
We have defined a network as an organization of computers which allow network applications to communicate. The concept of a network is greatly enhanced with the development of the Internet. The latter has allowed the sharing of resources and information at a world-wide level. This sharing has had a profound effect on each of our lives. From the road we use to drive to work with synchronized traffic lights for maximize traffic flow, to development of new communities through social media. Clearly, the Internet has made the world seen smaller and simplified our lives. This extension of the Internet into all facets of technology has coined a new term “The Internet of Things” (IoT)[footnoteRef:1]. Robert Belda explains: [1: Kevin Ashton is the person widely credited for coining the phrase in 1999 while working for Procter & Gamble. Since then, the phrase caught on and was used in a variety of articles, which appeared in scientific and academic journals]
People may not realize it but the Internet of Things is already gaining traction and slowly influencing how people live in this connected world. Right now, its perceived advantages may far outweigh its feared drawbacks. Some analysts even called the up-and-coming technological paradigm shift as bigger than the Industrial Revolution.
While the Internet has created many benefits, it has also brought its own set of problems, which negatively affect our lives. Let’s investigate the positive and negative effects of the Internet.
Electronic Communication
Before the Internet, communication with people, who lived far away, was limited to the telephone or postal mail. Now, we can send and receive messages through electronic mail instantly and without the need of a postage stamp. Today, most Canadians do their banking online. instead of driving to the bank and waiting in line to be served. Similarly, rather than driving to a mall and waiting in long lines to make a purchase, Canadians are shopping with a few clicks of the mouse any time day or night. Electronic communication has made it easier to work, bank and shop from home, simplifying and providing greater flexibility, but there has been a corresponding decline in personal security and privacy.
Electronic communication has proven an effective vehicle for cybercriminals to distribute spam and malware. Malware hiding in email attachments, can install spyware or ransomware. Cybercriminals can distribute malware through drive by downloads. This technique is very popular with high volume online shopping websites. The high volume makes the web site attractive to criminals to infect in order to distribute malware to visitors who click on an infected link. Or, cybercriminals can create fake websites that offer goods at unbelievable prices to attract individuals, or deceive individuals by posing as a legitimate site, such as a bank or PayPal. When users click on the spoofed web site or link they are redirected to a site controlled by the criminal to steal personal information. You might think you’re making a legitimate purchase, but the cybercriminal has just taken your personal information; the information will be used to commit identity theft or sold for profit on the black market.
To protect yourself always do the following:
· Install and keep up to date antivirus and anti-phishing software on your personal PC. Cybercriminals can take advantage of vulnerabilities in outdated software and use it to infect your PC with malware that can steal your banking credentials, so be sure to have adequate PC security software and keep your operating system, Web browsers, and other applications up-to-date.
· Don’t open any email attachment unless you checked the source, even if the email is sent from one of your contacts. Call by phone or email the source to ensure that they sent you an email with an attachment. If not delete it.
· Never comparison shop using a search engine. This method will always bring criminal web sites to your browser. Go to the official web site and do your own comparison.
· Never buy goods from an unknown retailer, regardless of how good the deal seems. Think before you click. Remember the adage, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t true” and you are being scamming by a criminal. Did you get an email indicating there was unusual activity with your account and that you should click on this link to verify? Or, did you receive an email confirmation of a flight you did not make? In either instance, do not panic. If you’re unsure whether the email is legitimate or not, the best way to find out is to log into your online account directly to check on the claim. As always, never open email attachments from a sender you do not know. In addition, make sure your PC has an antivirus and a good two-way firewall.
IoT
The Internet of Things pertains to the concept of devices connected to the Internet where data gathered by such devices are reported to users. People can then act on the said data or the devices themselves are empowered to act on it. The ease of data transmission, reception and implementation are all meant to improve people’s quality of life.
Internet is medium which connects all people and we can call it as “Internet of People” . IoT or Internet of things connects all things. The things can be sensors, actuators, home appliances, mobile devices, or anything that can communicate via internet
IoT Growth
Estimated number of IoT devices by the end of 2020 is between 30 to 50 billion, much more than the human population on the earth.
· In 2018—there were 7 billion IoT devices in 2018
· In 2019—the number of active IoT devices reached 26.66 billion
· Every second—127 new IoT devices are connected to the web
· During 2020—experts estimate the installation of 31 billion IoT devices
· By 2021—35 billion IoT devices will be installed worldwide
· By 2025—more than 75 IoT devices billion will be connected to the web
General market structure of IoT technologies
Components of IoT
1. Things-Smart Devices/Sensors & Actuators
Sensor are low powered devices that have a capability to monitor some physical or environmental phenomena and collect that information for further processing. Sensor nodes have limited battery power, but now there are some sensors available that can recharge themselves. They consume very little battery power for their operation, so even if they cannot recharge the battery, they still can live on batteries for a long time. Each sensing node is equipped with low power processor and a limited amount of memory. The sensed data is briefly stored in the sensing node before transmitting it to data collecting device. Some analog to digital data conversion and data aggregation operations are performed by the small power processor. An actuator operates in the reverse direction of a sensor. It takes an electrical input and turns it into physical action.
How to connect IoT things?
To connect things (smart devices/sensors) to the gateways, a low powered wireless technology is like ZigBee, WiFi, LoRa, ZWave, Bluetooth used.
· Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity)-It is the most common and widely used wireless technology. A formal protocol used is IEEE 802.11. Operates in frequency band of 2.4 GHz-5.0 GHz. All communication is encrypted and can reach up to 0-100 meters.
· ZigBee-Used for WPAN (Wireless personal area networks). Operates in the same 2.4 GHz frequency band as WiFi. It is highly secure and scalable and offers good data transfer rates.
· Bluetooth- Most popular technology, very commonly available in all smart devices. It operates 2.4 GHz frequency band. It offers short ranges of communication which is as per 3 classes are: <10m, equal to 10m and equal to 100m .
· LoRa-Long Ranged low power wide area networking (LoRaWAN) technology mainly developed for IoT devices. It offers secure and encrypted communication. It operates in a frequency band 1 GHz and transmission range between 0-20 km.
· Z-wave- It is a low power communication technology developed for the home automation. Z-wave uses ISM spectrum below 1 GHz range and offers low data rates than WiFi technology.
2. IoT Gateways
IoT gateways manages the bidirectional data traffic between different networks by bridging the gap between the local environment and the destination environment. This is done by translating protocols running between the local and destination platform, to maintain interoperability between the two. The also perform the preprocessing of the collected data before transmitting it to the next intended destination.
In some IoT architectures it includes edge computing devices and fog devices that acts as a middle layer between thing the and the cloud. A microcontroller/raspberry pi/aurdino processors they can act as edge device
Edge Computing- It usually performs directly on the devices to which the sensors are attached or a gateway device that is physically “close” to the sensors.
Fog- The data is processed within a fog node or IoT gateway which is situated within the LAN. Fog architecture uses edge devices to perform significant amounts of compute, storage, and networking functions locally and routed over the Internet. The fog extends the cloud to be closer to the things that produce and act on IoT data
3. Cloud-a collection of compute, storage and networking gear available in a centralized location such as a data center. The last phase of operation is done at the cloud. At this level, the received data is processed according to nature of data as well as the type of application for which it has been collected. IoT cloud is a sophisticated high-performance network of servers optimized to perform high speed data processing of billions of devices, traffic management and deliver accurate analytics.
4. Analytics
Analytics involves processing of the data collected by the sensor nodes, so that it can be interpreted and used for the detailed analysis which helps to find out thing’s researchers are looking for. It helps in identifying irregularities both in the IoT setup as well as for the application domain for which data is collected. Careful analysis also help organizations to predict trends in the market and plan ahead for a successful implementation.
5. User interface
User interface is the application used by users to monitor and control the data collected by the IoT devices. It engages customers with the data collected from their IoT devices and could be a mobile app, a website, a desktop application, or even a passive experience (something running at the back end) that no one interacts with directly. Effective and easily manageable user interface encourages users to use the IoT system. Some of them include touch panel instead of mechanical knobs and switches in household appliances and managing those devices via mobile and web applications.
IoT Applications
There are number of IoT applications based on the available technological solutions. Some of the application IoT are: Smart city, Smart home, smart grid, smart refrigerator, under water habitat monitoring, monitoring of plants, habitat monitoring, smart cars, smart industries etc. One of the most promising one is the smart cities.
Fig. 1.IoT Applications
Fig. 2 Smart Home
Figure 4: Smart Refrigerator
Figure 3: Smart Health (BAN-Body area networks-Remote patient monitoring
Figure 6: Smart Washer
Figure 5: E-helath-> Smart watch Fitness tracker
1. Smart Cities- Making our cities smart by effectively using the information and communication framework available development, deployment of city infrastructure and services. It improves the quality of life by promoting sustainable developmental practices to deal with the challenge of urbanization [7]. The objective can only be achieved by the use of IoT devices that collects information, provide it to the application via network infrastructure that should be easily available, so the seamless, time efficient data transfer to the cloud for the detailed data analysis can be done. In this manner a quick information being available that can improve with the use of technology, the services and the resources available to the residents. This includes utility services, energy conservation, waste management, traffic management, transport management and many other utilities.
Some of the places where IoT smart cities projects are functional are:
· Smart street lighting in London and Quebec where intelligent streetlights works as WIFI hotspots, have surveillance camera, charging outlets for electric cars and phones and measures air quality as well.
· Smart waste management implemented in Songdo district in South Korea where to clean the environment that includes restricting the movement of trash and to reduce noise pollution by eliminating garbage collection trucks. Buildings have centralized garbage collection station, where the sorted and disposed trash by the residents is sent to processing facility when it is filled. This is triggered when sensors detect the collection station is at full capacity, high pressure pipes installed to sent garbage to the processing facility.
· Connected public transport: sensors in public transportation send traffic data to the city transportation management software. They tell you in real-time how long you have to wait for the bus or train, alerting the system traffic congestion or delays.
Characteristics of Smart Cities
Fig. 7 Characteristics of Smart Cities
· Four attributes [10]
1. Sustainability- It is all about environment that includes climate change, pollution, energy and ecological systems
2. Quality of Life- This attribute seeks to improve the everyday life and well being of the citizens
3. Urbanization-It concerns with the technological, infrastructure, governing domains for the urban environment from the rural.
4. Smartness/Intelligence-It is the same as urbanization, which defines the desire to advance the social, environmental criteria of the city and its residents. It relates to the development of human and social capital. Their education, social diversity, integration, interaction and openness to the world.
Advantages and Challenges of Smart Cities
Advantages
· Some of the advantages of smart cities are:
· Public safety
· Faster commute
· Economic prosperity
· Greener environment
Challenges [11]
1. Technology challenges with coverage and capacity. (Limitations of available technology and infrastructure and its effect when deployed in a diverse social environment)
2. Digital security (Securing the data from unwanted use, because when data is collected it is being shared on multiple devices/platforms, so it is necessary to secure the information obtained/shared/collection with the permission of the user.
3. Legislation and policies (workable policies and regulations, so to fully utilized the capabilities of the deployed smart project, but also keeping into consideration privacy and security of the citizens)
4. Lack of confidence or reluctance shown by citizens (lack of clarity around benefits).It includes educating citizens about the importance and advantages of the smart city project, so the resident of the city understands and onboard when the project is being launched
5. Funding and business models (securing funding for the project and making sure resources are available till the project ends)
6. Interoperability (For seamless operation all making sure that system supports all devices and communication among them)
7. Existing infrastructure for energy, water and transportation systems (Ensuring that all the concerned departments of the city are onboard and coordination between them during the project)
Smart Home
The IoT is a revolution that promises to change people’s lives, from inside the home to right across society The Internet creates convenience in sharing and receiving information between devices. Right now, many smart devices like laptops, smart phones and tablets communicate with each other using Wi-Fi internet technology. The next step is IoT devices and sensors, which communicate with each other and automatically perform a designated task or function without user intervention. Household devices such as refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens, thermostat, door locks, among others, will all be part of a household local area network. Each device is equipped with a computer chips, software and access to the Internet making the “smart home” a reality. There is no doubt this it will happen; the lower cost computing today will be a boom for these smart devices. In fact, Steve Furber, who was the principal designer of the ARM processor, believes IoT will be the next big growth area for ARM.Figure 4: Controlling Home via Phone or Tablet
One example is the Nest thermostat where it adjusts household temperature depending on usage patterns and billing rates. The Nest thermostat can be controlled using a mobile app. The company was recently bought by Google for $3.2 billion; Google plans to expand the product line to include smart smoke detector and other products as part of its “smart-home solutions”. LG Electronics, the South Korean firm, is also now offering users the ability to control their appliances by way of text messages. The company has also been marketing an Internet enabled fridge. Utility companies have long advocated for better thermostats to help reduce energy costs. Smart thermostats can do this by adjusting the temperature when it senses you have left the house. Additionally, it “learns” your heating and cooling preferences and adjusts them to your liking.
While a smart thermostat can aid in reducing your energy cost, the downside is that a hacker could exploit the hardware of the thermostat and use it to spy on home owners. Since smart thermostats have access to information such as when you’re home or away, your postal code, and your WiFi credentials, a hacker who compromises the thermostat has access to all of this information.
This is not an idle problem. According to a recent study, 70% of IoT devices are vulnerable to cyber-attacks. This list includes thermostats, TVs, webcams, sprinkler control systems, home alarms, and door locks- just to name a few. The truth of the matter is that we are developing networked devices with insecure software; most vendors are producing retail products with security loopholes and vulnerabilities because security is not a priority.
To help network these devices together a new standard organization has emerged called the AllSeen Alliance, a nonprofit organization devoted to the adoption of the Internet of Things; the mission of the Alliance is to ensure interoperability of products made from different vendors, such as Cisco, Sharp and Panasonic. Gartner, an IT research company, estimates that by the year 2020, there will be 30 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Smart Home
The advantage highly networked smart devices is an enhanced quality of life. For example, health monitoring of out-patient clients is easy with connected RX bottles and medicine cabinets. Doctors supervising patients can remotely monitor their medicine intake, blood pressure, sugar levels and alert them when something goes wrong. This new type of medical monitoring is shown in the TV series Pure Genius with a medical command centre monitoring out patients from the BunkerHill Hospital.
Smart refrigerators, on the other hand, can suggest food supplies that are low on inventory and need immediate replenishment. When at work, it would be convenient to scan the barcodes of the fridge’s contents and compare the result to a list of required items. The fridge would be able to tell you what to pick up on the way home. But, did you know that your local supermarket is also very interested in what is in your fridge and freezer? Based on historical purchasing, your local supermarket wants to send you a shopping list of things to buy, and coincidentally in store specials on those items. Is the latter, an intrusion of privacy, or a convenience? The answer has yet to be developed.
Utility companies have long wanted to use wireless power meters to remotely read household meters. This was accomplished in Ontario 3 years ago; utility companies want to create a “smart grid”. One of the devices in your home utility companies want to control is your freezer. Energy can be saved by monitoring the internal temperature of the freezer and turning it off for periods of time when the everything is frozen and turning it back on when the temperature rise above a specified level. A smart home would also allow you to control the stove and other devices via the internet; the stove can be turned on and a nice meal, with music playing, is waiting for you when you get home. Lastly, TV companies want to monitor what you watch, so they can deliver highly targeted advertising to you in a mutually agreed manner.
Robots and Driver-Less Cars:
With the development of the smart home and RFID sensors strategically installed, robots to clean the house, set the table, serve meals, and provide security, will be common place by the end of the 2020’s. Expand the concept of smart home to the neighbourhood and robotic driver-less cars can operate. This may sound like something out of “The Jetsons”, but researchers believe we will soon be sharing our home and roadways with super-intelligent family robots. While some companies such as Uber and Tesla, have current drive-less models, fully automated driverless cars will not become common place until 2040.Figure 1: Uber Driverless Car
Robots and driver-less cars will help the aging or visually impaired loved ones from giving up their independence. Time spent commuting could be time spent doing what you want to do. Deaths from traffic accidents—over 1.2 million worldwide every year—could be reduced dramatically, especially since 94% of accidents result from human error. As Elmo Telsa stated, in the future human driving may be outlawed because it is too dangerous. Robots and driver-less cars operate using sensors designed to detect objects such as walls, stairs, pedestrians and other vehicles. The sensors are combined with onboard cameras to help the robot interpret its surroundings. The software helps the robot understand its present location, and predicts what will happen next, so that the robot can make an intelligent decision to complete some function such as changing lanes on a street, or setting a table for dinner.
Stumbling Blocks of IoT
1. Lack of data protection-With increased use of IoT devices and in general no data protection laws for data collected via IoT devices, ‘Data protection’ becomes the topmost stumbling block of IoT. Data privacy laws vary from country to country, which can be challenging, there are countries where it is not at all available. So, there is a need of a common data protection plan available for countries round the globe. Some of the data protection issues with IoT are:
2. For example, if you are receiving a grocery item buying notification on your phone, then its because of IoT, but the downside is that someone knows lot about you.
3. Telematics insurance is a new approach where a phone size device is installed in cars, which keeps track of the driving record that include driving patterns, behavior, car type, speed at times, use of brakes etc. This information helps the insurance company to tailored premiums based on the data received about the car and driver. This helps in promoting safe riving if the driver wants to save money, helps insurance company to better allocate risks, but on the other hand it raises issues to what extents insurance company can collect data? To what extent data portability is allowed from one company to other
4. Wearables are used for monitoring personal health, aging issues, medial monitoring, safety at work, and emergency management. Now, they have been included in many of the corporate wellness programs to monitor the health of their employees, so to reduce healthcare cost, sick leave taken and higher productivity. The downsides is that how much personal data can be revealed to the company? To what extent companies can use data collected from their employees??
5. In smart home what is the extent to which the producer of one smart device may be to blame for the failure of another. One of the example is, if a smart fridge is hacked and bypassed to unlock a connected smart lock, to what extent should liability for the economic loss of items stolen from the home be distributed between the manufacturers of each product?
Data Protection Regulations
· The minimal privacy regulation are already implemented in the digital world, but when information moves from one jurisdiction to another the law changes. It vary from country to country and that is a challenging situation for the vendors who operates in multiple regions
· The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recognizes this issue and asserted in their guidelines that “member countries have a common interest in protecting privacy and individual liberties” (OECD, 2013) regardless of countries having different policies.
· The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), introduced by the European Union in May 2018, aims to return control of personal data to consumers.
· As per, the National Conference of State Legislatures website, 31 states in US have data disposal laws and 47 states have security breach notification laws, but the laws are not uniform.
· Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) is the Canadian data protection law, that sets rules on how companies who collect personal data should protect it.
· The law requires companies to do things like create a privacy management program, limit collection, use and retention of data, give users access to information that the company has about them and provide a way for users to file complaints with the company.
6. Lack of Security- The second stumbling block of IoT is lack of security. An IoT is a dynamic system where data is being collected in real time, and in such system every poorly secured object can disturb the security and resilience of the entire system as they are connected like a chain [14]. Security has the equivalent importance as data protection. For secure IoT solutions, users need to be fully confident about the security of the device and application
· Best practices to secure IoT Devices:[14]
1. Hardware tamper resistance- Limited access to IoT devices, and device should either be tamper proof or tamper evident. Physically secure the hardware
2. Strong authentication-Use of strong passwords by the users, and alternate ways of device identification in case of machine-to-machine communication
3. Firmware updates-Devices should have support of latest patches and updates
4. Device identity spoofing- secure device identification, so device IDs cannot be spoofed
5. Dynamic testing-Both hardware and software can be tested for security measures
6. Failover design-IoT devices should operate in case of network failure. Failover design ensures user safety like door lock mechanisms, video monitoring, and environmental monitors and alarms.
However, the greatest problem is the lack of secure software in these products. Smart devices know a lot about you and your environment. This personal information, if accessed by criminals, will result in a severe loss of privacy and security.
To protect yourself always do the following:
· If you chose to use IoT devices, always be conscious of the potential risks. Examine, the privacy policies and security features, before making a purchase decision, and weight the potential risks.
· Also, when new security patches or software updates are available, you should immediately update to the latest version.
· And finally, don’t be afraid to contact the company that manufacturers the device, should you have questions or concerns about the product.
7. Cost- The third stumbling block is cost. The lack of security and data protection can cause an enterprise a huge loss. The cost of IoT hardware, software, maintenance increases with the increase with the level of secure solutions offered to the consumer. IoT-enabled products include technology and service components that add ongoing value.
IoT Standardization
The new industry standard organization, AllSeen Alliance, was launched in December 2013, to improve interoperability. The AllSeen Alliance proposes to unite industry leaders with a shared vision, a common language and a collaborative path to advance the Internet of Everything. See youtube video https://www.youtube.com/user/AllSeenAlliance
The AllSeen Alliance proposes devices be AllJoyn certified. The latter is an open source universal software framework and core set of system services that enable interoperability among connected products. It lets compatible devices and applications find each other, communicate and collaborate across the boundaries of product category, platform, brand, and connection type. Target devices include products in the Smart Home, but will later expand to Broadband Gateways and Driver-less cars. Presently, the communication layer (and thus hardware requirements) is limited to wi-fi.Figure 2: AllSeen Alliance Logo
In 2016, AllSeen is merged with Open connectivity foundation (OCF). In October 2016 they announced their merger into IoTivity. With the merger devices running either AllJoyn or Iotivity will be interoperable and backward compatible. AllJoyn provides several services that can be integrated with its core.
· Onboarding Service
· Configuration Service
· Notification Service
· Control Panel Service
· Common Device Model (CDM) Service
Platforms for IoT
IoT platform fills the gap that exists between sensing devices and the data network., to provide understanding of the data generated by the sensor nodes using backend application. There are many IoT platforms available now that provide option to deploy IoT on the go.
· Amazon Web Services (AWS) IoT
· Microsoft Azure IoT
· Google cloud
· ThingWorx IoT Platform
· IBM Watson provides:
· Cisco IoT Cloud Connect
Programming Languages for the IoT
Internet of Things (IoT) development projects are springing up at businesses all over the world. Choosing which language to use to write the project is as big a decision has which hardware platform to use. New languages and platforms are making it easier to engineer IoT projects than ever before. Once you’ve chosen the hardware platform, though, you still must develop the application software; here are some of the languages you should be familiar with.
Prior to the IoT, your choice of hardware platform dictated your choice of language. However, with the AllSeen Alliance open source project modern platforms can support multiple languages, increasing developer flexibility. How do you decide which programming language to use in a particular IoT project? Factors such as is the developer team familiar with the language or, whether it works within the environment used by other components of the project, or whether it produces code that is smaller, more efficient, or more rapidly written than that of other options.
Here are the top 7 languages that you should consider:
C and C++
C was first developed to program telephone switches and it is still a contender for IoT projects. It’s available on nearly every advanced embedded system platform and requires little processing power. The language is ideal for programmers who write for the lowest layer of software, the one closest to the hardware. The language hides nothing from you, and that means you can fiddle with every part of the code to squeeze out the best performance from an underpowered device. Every bit can be flipped. Every value on the stack is available. C++ is an alternative if the IoT device requires more complex tasks, think thermostats and smart toasters rather than devices that detect moisture or heat. C++ adds data abstraction, classes, and objects. All of these features make C++ a popular choice for those who are writing embedded and IoT code with an interface. This programming language still is going strong after more than 30 years in the field.
Java
C and C++ were designed from the ground up to allow very direct control of the hardware on which they would run. That’s a good factor when you’re trying to do very fine-grained monitoring and control of that hardware, and it means that the code written is very specific to the hardware. In programming parlance, the code is not terribly portable. The mentor of Java “write once, run anywhere makes it an ideal choice for an IoT project. Also, the Java compiler has very few hardware dependencies built into it. Developers can create and debug code on their desktop and then move it to any chip with a Java Virtual Machine. That means the code can run not just on places where JVMs are common (servers and smartphones), but also on the smallest machines. Today, most of the focus is on Java SE Embedded, which is much closer in capability to the Standard Edition. Developers can use the latest features of the Java 8 platform and then move their code to a smaller, embedded device. All of this makes Java great from an economic standpoint: An investment in Java code can be paid back across many different platforms. Java is also taught as one of the primary programming languages in hundreds of computer science and electrical engineering degree programs, so finding someone with Java skills is not terribly difficult.
Python
Python started as a scripting language to glue together real code, but it’s increasingly used as the main language for many developers. It has become one of the “go-to” language in Web development, and its use has spread to the embedded control and IoT world. The syntax is clean and simple, which greatly improves readability. If the project requires taking data and putting it into any sort of database format, then draw upon the tables for control information, Python is a very real contender provided the device has the processing power for the application. For very small devices there is MicroPython and a software package for very small microcontrollers optimized to run Python on a small board that’s only a few square inches. Python is very flexible in many ways. For example, it is an interpreted language that can either be submitted to a run-time compiler or run through one of several pre-compilers so that compact executable code may be distributed.
JavaScript
JavaScript is not an interpreted version of Java. It started as a scripting language, but has grown into a very full-featured language. The two languages were developed separately (JavaScript was developed by Netscape) and shares no syntax or semantics (however, there are libraries which allow Java and JavaScript to work together). JavaScript is heavily used for building Web-front-end applications. Forty-two percent of server based web applications use JavaScript. If you wanted to use the Apache server on a Raspberry Pi to gather data from a network of Arduino-based sensors, for example, JavaScript would be a good starting point for the effort. It’s not for lightweight embedded controllers because its interpreted structure requires more processing power, but it works well with RaspberryPi.
Swift
Swift is an Apple programming language, replacing Objective C. The fact that many IoT devices will need to interface with iPhone or iPad makes Swift a good choice for an IoT project. There are other good reasons to use this language, Apple wants to make its iOS devices the center of the smart home network of sensors, so it’s been creating libraries and infrastructure that handle much of the work. These libraries are the foundation of its “HomeKit” platform, which provides support for integrating the data feeds from a network of compatible devices. This means that programming an IoT project will take less time with Swift because you can concentrate on the application and leave the details of integration overhead to HomeKit.
B#
Where many of the languages mentioned here are large system languages that have been scaled down to fit into an embedded platform, B# was designed from the ground-up as a very small, very efficient embedded control language. The embedded virtual machine (EVM) that allows B# to run on a variety of different platforms only takes 24k of memory — much less than the overhead of other development languages. B# looks like C# (which will be familiar if you or your team is accustomed to working on Microsoft .NET projects), but it strips out many of the features not required for embedded projects and adds support for the real-time control functions that are critical when making things happen in the real world. If your project is going to live on embedded platforms that aren’t as big and complex as a Raspberry Pi, then B# is a language that you will want to consider.
C#
C# is a good choice for an IoT project. Microsoft’s strategy for IoT devices is to link them to the Azure cloud. Data collected from an almost limitless number of internet-connected sensors needs to be collated, analyzed and acted upon, and a public cloud is the logical route to do this. Presently, car companies such Corus, are using the cloud to provide mapping and integration to customers.
Microsoft has launched the Azure IoT Suite to aid developers in application development. The Suite acts as a bridge between customers’ devices and the back-end application for storing, analyzing and acting on IoT data in real time. The Suite is scaled to handle billions of devices. The Suite supports multiple protocols and languages including C, Python, Java and JavaScript. Microsoft is positioning itself to use the cloud as an interface for end-to-end solutions of IoT devices from multiple vendors. This makes C# and Visual Studio a real contender for IoT projects.