The Internet of Things (IoT) connects billions of physical devices—sensors, actuators, gateways, and edge computers—to the internet, enabling real-time data exchange, automation, and intelligence at scale. Born from embedded systems and machine-to-machine communication, IoT now spans consumer, industrial, healthcare, and smart city domains. In 2026, Edge AI, 5G connectivity, and mature security standards are reshaping the ecosystem from cloud-centric to distributed, locally-intelligent architectures. Understanding IoT means mastering not just device hardware, but communication protocols, data pipelines, power optimization, and security from chip to cloud—where every design choice trades off latency, bandwidth, energy, and cost.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers
This topic spans 20 focused tables and 141 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.
Table 1: Core IoT Device Types
| Type | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
DHT22 temperature/humidity sensorMPU-6050 accelerometer | • Hardware that measures physical phenomena (temperature, motion, light) and converts to digital signals • forms the perception layer of IoT systems | |
Servo motor controlling valveRelay switching LED | • Device that performs physical action in response to commands (open/close, move, switch) • enables IoT systems to affect the real world | |
ARM Cortex-M4 @ 80MHz, 256KB RAMRISC-V RV32IMAC @ 160MHz | • Single-chip computer with CPU, memory, and I/O • optimized for low power, real-time control, and embedded workloads under 1MB RAM | |
LoRaWAN gateway aggregating 500 nodesIndustrial edge gateway with Modbus + MQTT | • Protocol translator and aggregator between constrained devices and cloud/backend • provides local filtering, buffering, and security enforcement |