Introduction

When the first edition of this book came out in 2013, I opened it with the following greeting:

You have excellent timing. As I often like to say, “We're living in the future.”

I think I backed myself into a corner with that introduction, because if 2013 was “the future,” then I'm not quite sure what to call the present! The far future? The future-future? My point is, the march of progress has been swift, and the possibilities for what you can do with even a cursory knowledge of embedded electronics and software continue to expand every day.

Since the first edition of this book was released, electronics and software have continued to become increasingly accessible with every passing day. In 2013, I was hesitant to include a chapter about connecting your hardware projects to the internet because the process for doing so was still quite fussy. The “Internet of Things” (IoT) was just an emerging nerdy buzzword in 2013. Now...