Node.js for Embedded Systems ─ Using Web Technologies to Build Connected Devices

This practical book shows you how to build web applications that connect devices to the Internet of Things, using JavaScript and the Node.js platform. Programming Arduino boards in C or C++ is great for quickly prototyping and exploring embedded systems, but if you want to control or monitor hardware from web browsers, you need to start speaking JavaScript.

Web browsers make excellent interfaces for hardware, because they come on every system, make serial communication convenient, and provide a screen, which many embedded systems often don’t have on their own. Using the browser as the interface, JavaScript and Node.js provide communication between applications and hardware.

• Learn how to use web browsers as interfaces for embedded hardware
• Understand basic messaging between Node.js applications and hardware with Sockets’ publish-and-subscribe pattern (messaging is key for IoT)
• Use libraries to work with bits and bytes in Node.js
• Get examples for interactive hardware devices with Node.js and Johnny-5 (this shows how JavaScript can simplify hardware prototyping)
• Learn how to use a single-board computer (SBC) and/or Tessel to run scripts inside embedded devices (these devices can act as backbone for home automation, communication, and robots)

Before discovering software development for web applications with Java and Ruby in 2008, Patrick Mulder mainly worked as a software engineer on measurement equipment and electronic devices. Web development allowed him to learn about networks and linking documents, but working with measurement equipment gave him an appreciation for the many forms data can have. Not for nothing, Tim Berners-Lee invented large parts of the WWW while working at CERN, a European research organization for particle physics.

Yet, after programming with C, C++, Python, Ruby, and Java, learning Backbone.js proved difficult, as Patrick did not have much experience with the "non-blocking" behavior of JavaScript when he started working with Backbone. Luckily, he teamed up with a JavaScript developer, who taught him the differences of JavaScript from other programming languages. In the meantime, Patrick is convinced that JavaScript and Backbone are just great to explore data and interfaces for the Web.

Patrick likes blogging at http://thinkingonthinking.com, and has a passion for data-driven interfaces and data in general. After working in big and small software companies, he now works as a freelance software consultant, focusing on JavaScript, web interfaces, and measurement systems.