Do you need to be a C/C++ developer to work with IoT?

Do you need to have a bunch of IoT devices before you can get started?

The answer to those questions is no, this talk will show how you can get started building IoT solutions in minutes, with nothing more than a browser and a development environment using your favourite language like C#.
Based on our work at Kaluza (OVO Group) where we control devices such as storage heaters, heat pumps, smart chargers for electric vehicles, integrate with renewable power generators, I will show you how you can build your own IoT system.

What will the audience learn?

With a combination of live demos and real devices the audience will learn:

- How to create an Azure IoT Hub
- How to use IoT Hub toolkit for simulating devices and monitoring messages
- We will build end to end example including devices and a service controlling our system

Pre-requisites

No prior knowledge of IoT is required, I will show code samples in C#

Why should I care about IoT?

You don't have to be a super hero, to make a difference to our planet. Just a bit of programming skills will suffice.

We can't imagine our lives without electricity. Unfortunately it is generated mostly with fossil fuels and it's not good for our planet. That's why we build wind farms, solar panels, hydro power plants, but we can't force them to generate electricity when we want. We have to either use green electricity when it's available or store it. Both tasks are not easy, but with help from technology it's possible.

We can use IoT devices to change the power usage patterns, create virtual power plant, which can be used when the demand exceeds supply. This is exactly what we created over last couple years, controlling heat and car chargers using IoT. We integrated with a hydropower plant on Mull and a wind turbine on Orkney.

I will show you how we use Azure IoT Hub to do that. With simple demos and easy to follow examples you will hopefully leave the presentation inspired to try it at home.