Book Image

Hands-On Internet of Things with MQTT

By : Tim Pulver
Book Image

Hands-On Internet of Things with MQTT

By: Tim Pulver

Overview of this book

MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) is a lightweight messaging protocol for smart devices that can be used to build exciting, highly scalable Internet of Things (IoT) projects. This book will get you started with a quick introduction to the concepts of IoT and MQTT and explain how the latter can help you build your own internet-connected prototypes. As you advance, you’ll gain insights into how microcontrollers communicate, and you'll get to grips with the different messaging protocols and techniques involved. Once you are well-versed with the essential concepts, you’ll be able to put what you’ve learned into practice by building three projects from scratch, including an automatic pet food dispenser and a smart e-ink to-do display. You’ll also discover how to present your own prototypes professionally. In addition to this, you'll learn how to use technologies from third-party web service providers, along with other rapid prototyping technologies, such as laser cutting, 3D printing, and PCB production. By the end of this book, you’ll have gained hands-on experience in using MQTT to build your own IoT prototypes.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page

Improving the visual appearance

Let's improve the visual appearance of our food dispenser:

  1. Wrap a piece of paper or cardboard around the dispenser. This way, we can hide the plastic and servo:

Cardboard sleeve around the plastic bottle, fixed using tape
  1. You can use DIN A4 cardboard to build the sleeve. Wrap it around, fix it using tape, and then cut off the top part (next to where the bottle ends) to make it evenly round.
  1. To hide the inner parts even more, we can build another cylinder-like part around the bottom part of our dispenser (near the cap):

Another piece of cardboard is wrapped around the bottom part to form a cylinder and hide the servo motor
  1. Before fixing the cylinder-shaped cardboard, try moving the cap to see whether it still opens and closes properly. When you find a good position, fix it with tape:

The second cylinder-shaped cardboard hides...