Making Things Talk: Using Sensors, Networks, and Arduino to See, Hear, and Feel Your World

Three Questions for Tom Igoe

Who is your book written for?

Anyone who wants a hands-on introduction to devices that connect to each other over networks. This book doesn’t assume you’ve got a technical background, but it does assume that maybe you’ve dabbled a little in programming or electronics and want to know more.

What has changed in the space since the last edition?

For one thing, everything’s WiFI these days, and wired Ethernet has faded into the background. That meant I had to introduce a lot more WiFi projects. There are also lots of new microcontrollers on the market, so I introduced a few of the newer Arduino-compatible ones, like the Arduino 101, the MKR1000, and the ESP8266, and I also did a few projects with the Raspberry Pi.

Programming web servers is much more accessible now, too, thanks to programming tools like node.js, so the book features a lot of projects using node.js. This means you can program both server and client applications in JavaScript.

There are some new radio communications protocols to be aware of, like Bluetooth LE, Near Field Communication (NFC) and LoRa, so I introduced projects using these as well.

What sets this edition apart from previous ones?

I went into detail on how the HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) works, and wrote some material introducing how basic encryption works. I find that new programmers are often daunted when they run into some of these ideas, because they stumble across examples with little or no explanation. Hopefully this edition will give people enough context to get started — and some idea of where to look to learn more.