To get the most out of this book

IoT technology requires many different disciplines and skills to develop an IoT product. Fundamentally, you are expected to read Fritzing diagrams to set up the hardware prototypes in the examples, in addition to having programming capabilities with C and Python. It is also assumed that you have a familiarity with TCP/IP protocols and cryptography basics to follow the examples easily. In some chapters, there are reference books suggested for reading if you don't feel comfortable with the basics of the subject.

The necessary hardware components are listed before each example. However, you should have a breadboard, jumper wires, and a multimeter ready to be able to build the circuits. It is also advisable to have soldering equipment since many of the new modules need headers to be soldered in order to connect them to the breadboard.

As the development environment, you should have VS Code installed on your PC. The examples in this book are developed and tested on a Linux machine, but all should work regardless of the OS platform. The alternatives of the external tools are suggested for different platforms where necessary.

There are several mobile applications required for testing purposes. Therefore, you will need a mobile device while working on the examples. These mobile applications are available for both Android and iOS platforms.

To gain proficiency in a new subject requires a lot of practice. Each reference project at the end of the parts is for that purpose. After completing them, it would be highly beneficial to continue to work on the projects as suggested at the end of the chapters. Some more ideas are given for how to improve them further.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code via the GitHub repository (link available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.