In Chapter 2, Weather Station (IoT), we dealt with transferring data from Edison to the cloud platform. Here, in this chapter, we'll be doing just the opposite. We'll be controlling devices using the Internet. When we talk about IoT, the first thing that usually comes to mind is home automation. Home automation is basically controlling and monitoring home electrical appliances using an interface, which may be a mobile application, a web interface, a wall touch unit, or more simply, your own voice. So, here in this chapter, we'll be dealing with the various concepts of home automation using the MQTT protocol; then, we'll be controlling an electrical load with an Android application and a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application using the MQTT protocol. Some of the topics that we will discuss are:

• The various concepts of controlling devices using the Internet MQTT protocol

• Using Edison to push data and get data using the MQTT protocol

• LED control using the MQTT protocol

• Home automation use cases using the MQTT protocol

• The controller application in Android (MyMqtt) and in WPF (to be developed)

This chapter will use a companion application named MyMqtt, which can be downloaded from the Play Store. Credit goes to the developer (Instant Solutions) for developing the application and uploading it to the Play Store for free. MyMqtt can be found here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.tripwire.mqtt.client&hl=en

We are going to develop our own controller for PC as a WPF application that will implement the protocol and control your Edison.