Chapter 7. Internet of Things with BeagleBone

In the last chapter, we controlled analog components. We have done lots of physical computing exercises up to now. We used BeagleBone much like any microcontroller board doing electronics projects. But BeagleBone has many more capabilities. It has a full-fledged Linux operating system running inside it. It has an Ethernet port built-in. We have not used many of its capabilities yet. We can run it as a webserver and extend our physical computing programs to be executed from the Internet. In this chapter we will first learn about the Internet of Things. Then we will create a Node.js webserver running on BeagleBone and control a connected LED and servo motor remotely (even via smartphone). This will be our first step towards the Internet of Things. To cover a real-life example, we will program BeagleBone to e-mail when it detects overheating.

This chapter will cover the following topics:

• Why the Internet of Things?

• What is the Internet of Things?

• A...