Arduino Uno or Yun platforms are fun, inexpensive, and great projects for the newbie maker. The question is often how to get started on something relatively simple, but that is also interesting and of some utility. This title is aimed directly at those with some programming background who are curious about how to accomplish just that.

The first part’s three chapters focus on a basic introduction to the Arduino platforms and their extensions for Internet connectivity. Internet protocol basics of the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) and MQTT are succinctly and usefully reviewed, as are the perhaps daunting (to some) requirements for accomplishing the introductory projects, including especially software: for example, the Arduino IDE, an MQTT broker, Android Studio (the subject of other books), PHP, MySQL, and more. Some may find the software training involved (see Part 2 of this book) daunting.

The second part is more interesting, showing how to build prototype applications combining Arduino hardware and Internet of Things (IoT) software. All nine chapters are structured as so-called “IoT Patterns,” and rightly so. They are compelling, succinctly written, and useful. While I have not gone through the complete build of any, I am tempted to construct the soil moisture control system to monitor the conditions of my herb garden.

This is a useful addition to the market for its intended audience, and it meets the target it sets. The index is complete and a companion website exists (http://codifythings.com). At the site, one could note that there are projects for the useful Cayenne platform, although it is not discussed in this book. Other useful titles [1,2] are worth a look, but are perhaps just a bit more out of date as of 2016.

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