Accelerating IoT Development with ChatGPT: A practical guide to building your first IoT project using AI-assisted coding and cloud integration

Accelerating IoT Development with ChatGPT

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First published: August 2024

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To my loving wife, Yajing Wu. Her steadfast support and constant encouragement have been my anchor during this challenging endeavor, serving as a beacon of light that guided me through the daunting times.

To my beloved children, Suixin Wen and Ryan Wen. Their presence in my life fuels my drive, and their boundless curiosity inspires me daily to strive to be the best role model I can be.

To my parents, Mrs. Linzhu Tan and Mr. Jiwu Wen, whose love and guidance have shaped me into the person I am today.

– Jun Wen

Contributors

About the author

Jun Wen, the founder of AI Discovery Academy, is a passionate evangelist for AI enlightenment education among school students. With more than twenty years of experience in technology development, Jun has specialized in a wide range of industrial domains, including 4G/LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi, BLE, LoRaWAN, IoT, robotics, and AI. He has previously held senior product management positions at Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon, Cisco, and Motorola. Jun holds a Master of Science degree from Brown University and is an AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional. His passion extends to creating IoT innovations, utilizing platforms including Arduino, Raspberry Pi, RISC-V, and the AWS cloud, and finding practical applications for AI.

I want to express heartfelt thanks to my beloved wife, Yajing Wu, and my children, Suixin Wen and Ryan Wen, for their support during the writing of this book. Gratitude also goes to my Brown University’s Master’s in Technology Leadership Program Cohort 6 friends and professors, whose enthusiasm and insights sparked my journey. Finally, I appreciate Ashwin Dinesh Kharwa, Mudita, and Vidhi Vashisth from the Packt team for their professional service.

About the reviewers

Bob Lo has been working in networking technologies for over 30 years, with 25 years of them spent developing networking software at Cisco Systems. He is highly experienced in network/protocols, L2/L3, switches, routers, ASIC design, network drivers, embedded devices, and more. In the last 10+ years at Cisco, he has led a big team across the globe developing and innovating the latest IoT technologies. He received his BS in computer science from the National University of Singapore and an MSc in computer science from North Dakota State University. He has also worked with researchers and professors from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, on cutting-edge network technologies.

Sebastián Viviani is an electronics all-rounder. His passion for technology started at the age of 6, when he got a kids’ book about lights and switches, followed by a Commodore 64 and writing his first programs in BASIC.

The learning journey has never stopped since. He graduated as an electronics engineer from U.T.N. (Argentina) and has worked for several industry leaders including Cisco, Renesas, Quectel, and AWS throughout a 25-year career in very diverse hardware and software roles. He has his own lab at home (including a 3D printer), which some university colleagues praised as more complete and prepared than the ones we had when we studied.

His other passions are his family, his dog, and playing and coaching underwater hockey.

It amazes me how much things have changed since I first connected a lightbulb, a switch, and a battery, or wrote 10 PRINT CHR$(147).

Coding on a computer was for hackers then; these days kids learn programming at primary school.

Making a 1-layer PCB required drawing skills and handling perchloric acid; today you can get a 4-layer design assembled and delivered to your door.

And learning? There are so many resources at clicking distance.

Love it, let’s do more!

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Understanding IoT Fundamentals

1

IoT Essentials, All You Should Know

The evolving definition of IoT

Deployed from fixed to mobility

Mobility from a local area to a wide area

Presence from city to barren fields

Throughput from Mb/s to Gb/s

Battery life from days to years

Networking from point-to-point and point-to-multipoint to mesh and star topologies

Intelligence at edge node

AI and ML

Addressable markets

Residential

Commercial and business

Neighborhood and campus

Cities

Rural areas

Industries

How IoT impacts us

Living comfort and safety improvement

Operational efficiency improvement

Environmental protection improvement

Industrial productivity improvement

Summary

Further reading

2

IoT Network, the Neural System of Things

IoT networks at home

Home Wi-Fi

BLE

Thread

IoT networks on campuses and in buildings

Enterprise Wi-Fi

Thread mesh

Private LoRaWAN network

No one-size-fits-all approach

IoT networks in cities

Cellular network

Public LoRaWAN network

IoT networks in rural areas

Private LoRaWAN network

LEO network

Summary

3

IoT End Devices, the Neuron Cells of an IoT System

Device types

Installing indoors versus outdoors

Powering via external supply versus batteries

Connected by wire versus wireless

The need for edge computing

Hardware architecture

MCUs

Roles

Key features

Critical components

Off-the-shelf MCU

DIY-friendly MCU

Peripherals and interfaces

GPIO

SPI

I2C

UART

USB

SDIO

ADCs

DACs

PWM outputs

JTAG

Timers

Real-time clock

Sensors and actuators

Sensors

Actuators

Common pins on sensors

Understanding sensor specifications

Summary

4

Wireless Connectivity, the Nervous Pathway to Delivering IoT Data

10 knowledge points about wireless data communication

OSI model

Signal processing

Electromagnetic waves

Frequency and wavelength

dB, dBm, and dBi

Signal strength and quality

Shannon’s Law and theoretical channel capacity

Modulation

Antenna technology

Propagation distance

BLE

History and current status

Bluetooth 1.0 to 3.0 – the age of Bluetooth Classic

Bluetooth 4.0 to 5.3 and beyond – the era of BLE

Wi-Fi

History and current status

Wi-Fi 6

Wi-Fi 6E

Wi-Fi 7

4G/LTE and 5G

History and current status

NB-IoT

LTE CAT-M

Standard organization

Ecosystem players

Summary

5

The Cloud, IoT’s Superpower Brain

Important tips

Why is the cloud essential for IoT?

The pain point of IoT before the cloud

The impact of the cloud

Integrating IoT with the cloud

Device management

Data ingestion

Communication protocols between IoT devices and the cloud

MQTT

LwM2M

CoAP

AWS for IoT

AWS IoT Core

AWS IoT Device Management

AWS IoT Device Defender

AWS IoT Analytics

AWS Lambda

AWS Kinesis

AWS DynamoDB

AWS QuickSight

Summary

Part 2: Utilizing AI in IoT Development

6

Applying ChatGPT in the IoT Innovation Journey

Important tips

Reshaping the future with AI

Utilizing ChatGPT in IoT development process

Interacting with ChatGPT properly

Best practices for beginner IoT projects

Prompt framework options

Best practice prompt examples

Generating code snippets on ESP32

Summary

7

Recommendations to Start Your First IoT Project

Technical requirements

Thinking big and starting small

Reaching out for the low-hanging fruits first

Summary

8

10 Beginner-Friendly IoT Projects with ChatGPT Prompts

Technical requirements

Project 1 – temperature and humidity measurement

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 2 – flame detection

Specifications

Analog output values

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 3 – PIR motion detection

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 4 – gas detection

Specifications

Analog output values

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 5 – distance measurement

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 6 – tilt detection

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 7 – vibration detection

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 8 – collision detection

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 9 – soil moisture detection

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Project 10 – magnetic change detection

Specifications

Applications

Prompt to ChatGPT

Code example

Summary

9

Using AI Tools to Draw Application Flow Diagrams

Using diagrams for a better application journey

Processing data locally

Establishing an internet connection

Sending sensor data to Cloud

Data processing on the cloud

Summary

Part 3: Practicing an End-to-End Project

10

Setting Up the Development Environment for Your First Project

Technical requirements

Installing Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Setting up PlatformIO IDE

Installing other coding assistance extensions

Creating your first project under PlatformIO

Summary

11

Programming Your First Code on ESP32

Designing the application’s local logic

Creating a flow diagram with ChatGPT

Building a device hardware prototype

Instructing ChatGPT to generate C++ code

Code examples

Using PlatformIO to program code on the ESP32

Summary

12

Establishing Wi-Fi Connectivity

Designing Wi-Fi access logic

Creating the Wi-Fi access flow diagram

Instructing ChatGPT to generate code

Code examples

Validating internet access on ESP32

Summary

13

Connecting the ESP32 to AWS IoT Core

Technical requirements

Understanding the approach to connect the ESP32 to AWS IoT Core

Provisioning the ESP32 in AWS IoT Core

Creating an AWS credential header file on the ESP32

Instructing ChatGPT to produce TLS code on the ESP32

Code examples

Validating access status on the ESP32

Summary

14

Publishing Sensor Data to AWS IoT Core

Technical requirements

Sending sensor data through MQTT Publish

Constructing an MQTT Publish topic and payload in ESP32

Code examples

Validating the delivered sensor data

Summary

15

Processing, Storing, and Querying Sensor Data on AWS Cloud

Creating a customer-managed policy

Task 1 – abnormal event process

Configuration steps

Creating a message routing rule

Creating a Lambda function

Creating an SNS topic

Programming the Lambda function

Task 2 – data storage and querying

Creating IoT Analytics resources

Creating a second message routing rule

Running a data query

Summary

16

Creating a Data Visualization Dashboard on ThingsBoard

Technical requirements

Integrating the AWS cloud with ThingsBoard

Task 1 – Provisioning a ThingsBoard agent with AWS

Task 2 – Creating the data converter and integrating it with ThingsBoard

Task 3 – Producing a real-time dashboard with ThingsBoard

Summary

Index

Other Books You May Enjoy

Preface

Are you overflowing with innovative ideas, yet finding it difficult to navigate the intricacies of software coding? Utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) to expedite your Internet of Things (IoT) development journey!

AI is a transformative force that is reshaping our lives, societies, and industries. This book guides beginners on how to use AI’s coding abilities to construct their first end-to-end IoT prototype. It covers everything from drawing an application flow diagram, crafting the hardware prototype, producing embedded C++ example code, establishing Wi-Fi connectivity, and accessing Amazon Web Services (AWS), to creating a real-time dashboard on ThingsBoard Cloud.

The book ensures a smooth learning curve, starting from the IoT fundamentals, architecture, key elements, recommendations, and best practice examples, to a thorough step-by-step hands-on project illustration. A distinguishing feature of this book is its exploration of recent AI advancements and their transformative impact on the IoT world. It emphasizes ChatGPT prompt skills specifically tailored for IoT projects and presents a detailed framework for crafting effective ChatGPT prompts. This empowers you to harness this powerful tool in your IoT endeavors, overcoming barriers related to inadequate software coding skills or experience.

You will be introduced to the PlatformIO IDE on Visual Studio Code, one of the most popular embedded software development environments. Additionally, you’ll learn about the cutting-edge RISC-V architecture MCU – ESP32, Arduino-compatible sensors, and integration methods for the AWS cloud and ThingsBoard dashboard.

As part of the learning approach, I provide the functional codes generated by ChatGPT and prompting instruction examples in the GitHub repo for this book.

By the end of this book, you will be equipped to build your first successful IoT prototype, effectively bridging the gap between your innovative ideas and functional creations.

Who this book is for

This book is designed for beginners who are eager to explore the world of IoT technology but face obstacles due to limited experience in embedded software coding, particularly in C++. The primary audience includes middle- to high-school and undergraduate students, hobbyists interested in smart home applications, hardware enthusiasts, DIY creators, startup entrepreneurs, educators, and professionals from non-technical backgrounds. Often, their innovative potential is hindered by the complexity of software coding. Fortunately, AI can serve as an intelligent assistant, offering example code to accelerate the development of IoT prototypes.

This book assumes that readers have a basic understanding of electronic physics, knowledge of internet and IP connectivity, a rudimentary grasp of software coding structure, and familiarity with basic cloud concepts.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, IoT Essentials, All You Should Know, offers an introduction to the core concepts and components that define IoT technologies.

Chapter 2, IoT Network, the Neural System of Things, gives you a detailed look at the infrastructure and architecture of IoT systems.

Chapter 3, IoT End Devices, the Neuron Cells of an IoT System, helps you understand the role and functionality of the devices at the edge of IoT networks.

Chapter 4, Wireless Connectivity, the Nervous Pathway to Delivering IoT Data, explores the wireless technologies that convey data within IoT systems.

Chapter 5, The Cloud, IoT’s Superpower Brain, discusses the capabilities and advantages of cloud computing in enhancing and scaling IoT applications.

Chapter 6, Applying ChatGPT in the IoT Innovation Journey, explores how AI can assist in conceptualizing, planning, and executing IoT solutions, emphasizing the transformative impact of AI on the innovation process.

Chapter 7, Recommendations to Start Your First IoT Project, provides you with practical advice on initiating your first IoT projects.

Chapter 8, 10 Beginner-Friendly IoT Projects with ChatGPT Prompts, details 10 projects using ChatGPT to various extents, showcasing how AI can streamline the development process, from sensor integration to data handling.

Chapter 9, Using AI Tools to Draw Application Flow Diagrams, teaches you about the use of AI-driven tools to create IoT application flow diagrams.

Chapter 10, Setting Up the Development Environment for Your First Project, provides a detailed guide on how to establish a development environment using Visual Studio Code and the PlatformIO IDE.

Chapter 11, Programming Your First Code on ESP32, walks through ChatGPT-assisted C++ programming on an ESP32 microcontroller to read sensor data locally.

Chapter 12, Establishing Wi-Fi Connectivity, explains the steps to configure the ESP32 to connect to a Wi-Fi network.

Chapter 13, Connecting the ESP32 to AWS IoT Core, illustrates the configuration of AWS IoT Core settings, certificate management, and how to establish a secure MQTT/TLS connection from the ESP32.

Chapter 14, Publishing Sensor Data to AWS IoT Core, guides you through the process of setting up sensors, collecting data, and publishing it to the cloud.

Chapter 15, Processing, Storing, and Querying Sensor Data on AWS Cloud, has you practicing tasks to process data via Python functions on AWS Lambda and store and query data using AWS IoT Analytics.

Chapter 16, Creating a Data Visualization Dashboard on ThingsBoard, explains how to integrate the AWS cloud with ThingsBoard, set up real-time data feeds, and build your own dashboards.

To get the most out of this book

You will need to have an understanding of the basics of software development IDE tools, open source hardware, and the cloud.

Download the example code files

You can download the example codes and ChatGPT prompting files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Accelerating-IoT-Development-with-ChatGPT. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: Utilizing build_flags in this context offers several benefits.

A block of code is set as follows:

 1. [env:esp32-c3-devkitc-02]

 2. platform = espressif32

 3. board = esp32-c3-devkitc-02

 4. framework = arduino

 5. monitor_filters = esp32_exception_decoder, colorize

 6. monitor_speed = 115200

 7. build_src_filter = +<../../src/>  +<./>

 8. board_build.flash_mode = dio

 9. build_flags = 

10.     -DARDUINO_USB_MODE=1

11.     -DARDUINO_USB_CDC_ON_BOOT=1

12.     -w

13. lib_deps = 

14.     adafruit/DHT sensor library@^1.4.6

15.     adafruit/Adafruit Unified Sensor@^1.1.14

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

pio platform install espressif32

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: The ESP32 will reboot and you can locate the Serial Monitor button.

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

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General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

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Part 1: Understanding IoT Fundamentals

In this section, you will explore in depth the fundamental components of IoT systems, using an enlightening analogy with the human neural system to illustrate the functions and interconnected nature of these technologies. You will gain a solid understanding of the essential concepts that underpin the IoT ecosystem, learning about the critical roles of IoT networks and end devices, and the various options for wireless connectivity that act like the nerves in a body, delivering data seamlessly across distances. Moreover, you will study how the cloud functions as the brain of IoT systems, providing substantial computing power and vast storage capabilities to process and manage data efficiently. This section sets the stage for a deeper appreciation of how IoT operates within and interacts with various applications.

This part contains the following chapters:

Chapter 1, IoT Essentials, All You Should Know

Chapter 2, IoT Network, the Neural System of Things

Chapter 3, IoT End Devices, the Neuron Cells of an IoT System

Chapter 4, Wireless Connectivity, the Nervous Pathway to Delivering IoT Data

Chapter 5, The Cloud, IoT’s Superpower Brain

1

IoT Essentials, All You Should Know

In this chapter, you will go through the concepts and definitions of the Internet of Things (IoT) as defined by the industry, as well as its remarkable evolution milestones since its inception. By understanding the historical context and outlook of IoT, you will gain valuable insights into its significance and potential applications in the market.

Furthermore, you will zoom into the wide-ranging market that IoT addresses and various industries and sectors where its impact is most prominent. From healthcare to transportation, from smart homes to industrial automation, IoT has revolutionized the way we live, work, and interact with our environment. You will explore these real-world applications and the transformative power of IoT in shaping our society.

By the end of this chapter, you will have acquired a solid foundation and a well-rounded understanding of essential concepts and knowledge required to embark on your journey into the intricate world of IoT. You will be fully prepared to explore the details and intricacies of IoT as we dive deeper into the subject matter in subsequent chapters of this book.

In the engineering projects in Chapter 11, with the assistance of ChatGPT, you will learn to program C++ code on an ESP32 microcontroller unit (MCU), send diverse sensors’ data through your home Wi-Wi network, and store, analyze, and visualize live and dynamic sensor data on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. In this chapter, we will acquaint ourselves with these terms so as to build the right foundation.

This chapter covers the following topics:

The evolving definition of IoT

Addressable markets

How IoT impacts us

The evolving definition of IoT

IoT has never stopped evolving its definition since its debut in the 1990s.

According to Gartner (https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/internet-of-things), the concept of IoT is defined as follows:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment.

However, as of today, this definition may seem a little cliché and out of date. Initially, the notion of IoT was specifically designed to support traditional machine-to-machine (M2M) communication within manufacturing plants, where it was constrained by wired copper twists, Ethernet cables, and power supply cords. It was typically deployed in a fixed scenario with no mobility, scalability, elasticity, power consumption, and cost efficiency.

Since 1999, when IoT was officially named by Kevin Ashton, MIT’s Executive Director of Auto-ID Labs, it has been making significant strides in various areas. This is thanks to breakthroughs in industrial innovations such as silicon chipsets, wireless technologies, and cloud services. IoT no longer operates solely on a local network but goes beyond massive geographical areas on a vast scale. IoT is now expanding its reach beyond homes, residential and commercial areas, campuses, and cities, and is even reaching deserts, barren zones, oceans, and aerospace.

Looking back, the evolution of IoT has experienced several remarkable leaps since its inception. These leaps include improvements in deployment coverage, power consumption, cost structure, and architecture, as described next.

Deployed from fixed to mobility

The year 2000 was a pivotal moment for the IoT explosion. It marked a significant milestone in the advancement of IoT applications. This was made possible by the industrial innovation of low-cost 802.11 Wi-Fi networks, which were rapidly and widely adopted in both homes and enterprises. The introduction of the 802.11 Wi-Fi network brought about a revolution for IoT devices. They were no longer solely reliant on cables (although a power cable might still be necessary), but could now benefit from the convenience of mobility. This groundbreaking development enabled IoT devices to be seamlessly connected through wireless connectivity in residential, commercial, and business spots, whether they were stationary or on the move. This was a monumental shift in the IoT landscape, paving the way for even greater possibilities and innovations in the future.

802.11 Wi-Fi is not the only option dominating the home and enterprise spaces; there are other new players that provide local mobility as well, including the 802.15.1 family of Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and the 802.15.4 family comprising ZigBee, Thread, and Matter, and Sub-GHz Z-Wave.

Mobility from a local area to a wide area

The year 2005 was a significant catalyst for boosting IoT with the