In Chapter 3, Communications Protocols Used in Edge Analytics, we described the design of a smart heating system for an ice rink. A Raspberry Pi was used to regulate the temperature based on temperature and camera sensory information.
For this chapter's tutorial, we will modify the design. We will use a Pycom LoPy microcontroller instead of a Raspberry Pi. We will also take out the camera and leave the temperature sensor. We will assume that the rink does not have access to Wi-Fi, so we will use the LoRa communication protocol to send updates to an internet-connected LoRa gateway. From the gateway, we will use the MQTT protocol to update an MQTT broker, which will feed into a Node-RED dashboard.
The following are needed for our design:
- Pycom LoPy or LoPy 4 microcontroller
- FTDI or Pycom expansion board
- Antenna pig tails...
