In this chapter, we developed a solution running on a real device that supports Node.js. We also used the low-level mraa library, which interacts with the device GPIO (General Purpose IO), reads analog sensors (temperature and soil moisture sensors) and uses digital pins to switch a relay on and off. This looks very simple but most devices have sensors and actuators, which may change the way in which they are used. However, they essentially follow the same concept.

We created a dashboard in the IBM Watson IoT Platform that is helpful for looking at what real-time data devices are publishing. We also created an application in the IBM Cloud Platform (Bluemix) and attached backing services (the IBM Watson IoT Platform organization) to the application in order to leverage configuration data to connect to the service and deploy the application using the Bluemix command-line interface.

The next chapters will introduce blockchain as a platform for interconnected businesses and explain its value and the common use cases in which it adds value to the business chain.