In my personal life, I’ve jumped in the SmartHome head first, but I’ve been really reluctant to blur the lines into my professional life. Recently, I saw something that changed all that. The Microsoft IoT DevKit board.

What is it?

This is Microsoft hardware product that allows developers to jump into the IoT pool. Specifically, the Microsoft Azure IoT hub pool. This is a very capable board with multiple sensors.

What sensors you ask?

• Humidity: 
• Air Pressure
• Temperature
• Magnetometer
• Motion
• Microphone

Basically, it’s a really good sensor that can grab the majority of the physical measurements that we want to look at in the IoT world. 

What do I do with it?

Right now, this is really just a tech toy for me. I have no specific projects that I’m trying to achieve. Rather this is a device that I’m using to try and really understand HOW the IoT ecosystem works and ensure my employability in years to come. So I don’t have any specific goals, but that’s really ok because Microsoft has been wonderful enough to supply us with the Microsoft IoT DevKit page over at Github which has a few different projects that allow me to grow my skills in several IoT use cases until my own specific use-case pops into my head. 

What Projects are available?

The great thing about the DevKit project page is that there are a bunch of projects that are intended to take us from zero to hero in the IoT developer world. Or at least from noob to semi-competent. 

From basic projects like Connect to Azure IoT hub and Remote Monitoring to more advanced projects like DevKit translator which leverages Microsoft’s Bing to create a speech translator or Shake,Shake for a tweet which integrates motion sensors with twitter.

There are ten projects in all and I wouldn’t be surprised if more projects are released in the future.

What Next?

This is an interesting project for me. It’s not python, it’s not really networking. And I’ve never used any Microsoft Azure services before. So this is going to be an interesting ride.

My plan is to start with the first tutorial, and see if I can bang my head against it until it works. 🙂  Look for that blog soon!

Interested in joining me on the journey? I picked up a board for $39 from DFRobot and it arrived in just a couple of days. If anyone wants to jump in and compare notes, please feel free to reach out. I’m more than happy to share what I’ve learned.

@netmanchris