Raspberry Pico W Simplified

The Raspberry Pico W is a microcontroller development board like the Arduino.
The Pico W offers more IO ports, a faster processor and a lot more memory.
Next to that it has Wifi which makes it more than suitable for the Internet of Things.
And best of all it is world wide available and cheap.
You can build for example your own Wifi controlled lamp or fan.

The book starts with a short course on the, easy to learn, MicroPython language.
All through the book new sensors are introduced: button, led, digital thermometer, motion sensor, light dependent sensor and vibration sensor.
For each sensor there is a breadboard layout that shows how to connect it.
And a software example with an extensive explanation.

The main focus of this book is however on Wifi.
The book shows how to send sensor readings to the web service Thingspeak, to build a dashboard with diagrams and gauges.
It shows how to use Ping to, for example, automatically switch a lamp on when you arrive at home.
A tutorial on Pushbullet shows how to send alarms to your phone when a certain temperature is reached or a door is opened.
And there are tutorials on how to send messages and sensor values to Telegram and Dweet.

The last chapter shows how to build a webpage.
This can be accessed from your phone, tablet and computer and even all at the same time.
The webpage displays sensor readings, but also includes buttons to set leds, lamps, fans, pumps etc. on or off.

If want to start with the Internet of Things but think that the learning curve is to steep, you will be pleasantly surprised.