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)