Part 3: IoT Devices
IoT devices are non-standard computing devices that connect wirelessly and have ability to send and receive data. IoT devices include wireless sensors, software, actuators, and computer devices. They are attached to a particular object that operates through the internet, enabling the transfer of data among objects or people automatically without human intervention.
For example, IoT systems in your car identifies the traffic ahead and automatically sends out messages to the person you are about to meet of your impending delay. Even a pacemaker can be an IoT device that seamlessly communicates with other machines for a greater ease of life and convenience.
A number of challenges can create difficulties in the successful installation of an IoT system and its connected devices, including security, interoperability, processing capabilities, scalability and availability. Many of these can be addressed with IoT Device Management either by adopting standard protocols or using services offered by sellers.
Device management helps companies to integrate, organize, monitor and remotely manage internet-enabled devices at scale, offering features to maintain the health, connectivity and security of the IoT devices along their entire lifecycles. Such features include:
· Monitoring
· Diagnostic
· Configuring
· Authentication
· Registration
· Troubleshooting
· Managing
Available protocols used for device management include the Open Mobile Alliance’s Lightweight Machine-To-Machine (OMA-LwM2M) protocol and Open Mobile Alliance’s Device Management (OMA-DM) protocol.
These IoT device management services are available from vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, Amazon, Bosch, IBM, Couchbase, etc.
IoT Device Connectivity and Networking protocols used in the devices depends on the application of IoT. There are many different connectivity options for different applications.
These connectivity protocols include ZigBee, Z-Wave, 6LowPAN, Thread, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Sigfox, Neul and many more. Each one of these have their own tradeoffs in terms of bandwidth, range and power consumption which must be considered while choosing for a particular IoT application.
IoT Device Security is a major issue that we face in present world. Devices will be more secure if IoT reaches its full potential. New devices are being introduced into IoT at rapid pace, creating threat to IoT ecosystem. Security threats mostly happen due to insecure logs and passwords, using widely shared LAN and network connections, third party applications and unencrypted protocols.
But the good news is that we can protect these with various security policies and make the network smarter and defensible.
· Watch out for malware and ransomware such as Mirai. Mirai is a kind of malware responsible for a DDoS attack. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) is a type of cyber attack that makes the computer resources unavailable for its genuine users. IoT devices are gold for the attackers because it’s always on, not like your laptop that can be turned off after every use, which makes these attacks effective. IoT devices are soft targets for hackers.
· Manufacturers play an important role in the security. One should always use the products that are developed by an authorized manufacturer. When the manufacturer codes a software or develops a device, they do it by keeping the security in mind. There is a process where these devices and software are tested against threats. Using an authorized product can save you from the security threats.
Now let’s know about some of the common and most popular IoT devices:
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi is a series of single- board credit card sized computers, designed and manufactured by Raspberry Pi foundation. It is cheap computer that runs Linux and also provides a set of General-Purpose input/output (GPIO) pins for physical computing and exploring IoT.
The recently launched Raspberry Pi 4 has a full-chip redesign, the first in the history of Raspberry Pi. It comes with the powerful Broadcom BCM2711B0 quad0core ARMv8-A (64-bit) processor clocked at 1.5GHz, with choice of 1GB, 2GB or 4GB LPDDR4 RAM. It also comes with 40-pin GPIO header, 2 micro-HDMI ports, audio jack, 4-USB ports, Ethernet port and CSI (Camera Serial Interface).
Sense HAT
The Sense HAT is an add-on board for Raspberry Pi, made especially for the Astro Pi mission — it launched to the International Space Station in December 2015 — and is now available to buy.
It features an 8x8 RGB LED matrix, a mini joystick and some sensors such as:
· Gyroscope
· Accelerometer
· Magnetometer
· Temperature
· Humidity
· Barometric pressure
Intel Galileo
Galileo is a microcontroller board based on Intel Quark SoC processor, a 32-bit Pentium-class system. It is the first intel designed hardware, compatible with Arduino shields designed for UNO R3. It is also software compatible with the Arduino IDE, which makes it easy to use. It comes with a full sized mini-PCI Express slot, 100Mb Ethernet port, Micro-SD slot and some USB ports.
Arduino Boards
Arduino is an open-source microcontroller development board. Arduino is used to read sensors and control things. Basically, if there is anything that is in any way controlled by electricity, the Arduino can interface with it. Arduino boards are preassembled with a set of analog and digital input/output pins that helps various circuits to interact with other devices.
The Arduino board started adapting to the new needs and challenges, differentiating it from simple 8-bit boards to products for IoT applications, wearable, 3D printing, and embedded environments. The possibilities of Arduino are almost limitless.
ESP8266
The ESP8266 is a very cheap Wi-Fi microchip with capability of 32-bit microcontroller. It is a highly integrated chip developed to provide full internet connectivity in a small package. The module comes fitted with an AT Command firmware that can be used with any MCU via COM port.
NVIDIA Jetson Nano
NVIDIA Jetson Nano enables the development of millions of new small, low-power AI systems. It lets you run multiple neural networks in parallel like speech recognizing, image classification, object detection, etc. It opens worlds of IoT embedded application.
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Stay tuned for the next part………………….
