Integrating physical devices with IOTA — Philips Hue edition
The full article was originally published by Hugo Gregersen on Medium. Read the full article here.
The 14th part in a series of beginner tutorials on integrating physical devices with the IOTA protocolIntroduction
This is the 14th part in a series of beginner tutorials where we explore integrating physical devices with the IOTA protocol. In this tutorial, we will be revisiting the use-case from the first tutorial in this series, where we built a simple power circuit that would allow us to purchase services from a physical device using IOTA tokens. In this tutorial, we will take on the same idea and apply it on top of an existing ecosystem of hardware and software, namely the Philips Hue.
This will be a two-part tutorial where in the first tutorial we focus on integrating IOTA with the popular Philips Hue. In the second tutorial, we will look at smart home devices in general and how we could integrate IOTA with the opensource ZigBee protocol.
Note!
This is probably the easiest tutorial in this series to complete as it does not involve dealing with any electronics or micro-controllers.
The use case
So, why would our hotel owner choose to implement his IOTA payment system on top of an existing ecosystem like the Philips Hue vs building it from scratch as we did in the first tutorial? Well, the simple answer is “plug and play”. Instead of having to deal with a lot of wiring and microcontrollers, he can now simply go to his nearest electronics store, get all the smart devices (lamps, bulbs, plugs, etc.) he needs and have his new payment system up and running in a couple of hours.
Note!
The Philips Hue system also provides a lot of features that would be very hard to implement from scratch. Such as controlling light colors, light intensity, etc.
What is Philips Hue?
Philips Hue is an ecosystem of color-changing lamps, bulbs, LED stripes, switches, dimmers, motion sensors, smart power plugs etc. that can be controlled wirelessly from an app or the Phillips Hue API. In the center of the ecosystem is the Phillips Hue Bridge. The Hue Bridge functions as a common controller for the entire system. The Hue Bridge can manage up to 50 Hue devices simultaneously in a mesh type wireless network.
You should be able to get a Philips Hue starter kit with a Bridge and a couple of smart light bulbs for less than 100 USD at your nearest electronics store.