IoT End Devices, the Neuron Cells of an IoT System
Just as neurons are the basic building blocks of the human neural system, the fundamental component in an IoT network is the IoT end device. These devices, like the sensing function of neural cells, are designed to monitor the surroundings, report changes, and perform actions.
In this chapter, you will learn about the crucial role of IoT end devices in IoT applications. These devices detect, capture, measure, and report the status or data changes of target objects to backend cloud platforms. They can also execute operations on these objects based on commands received from the backend.
To give you a comprehensive understanding of the functions and design of IoT end devices, we will discuss them from various perspectives. These include the common categories of IoT end device types, as well as their hardware architecture, MCUs, peripherals, input and output interfaces, and the sensors and actuators commonly used in IoT applications...