World’s Top 20 IoT Project Ideas for IoT Enthusiasts

IoT has been all the rage over the past couple of years. The extensive use of sensors and wireless connectivity among devices has increased to the trend. The increase, brings in turn, easily available technology for hobbyists to explore. Connecting everything to everything seems like a good idea. For e.g. how would you like to control your air conditioner from the comfort of your bed when you forget your remote in the other end of the room. We discuss similar IoT projects in this list of top 20 IoT projects.

IoT Projects: Development Boards

Windows 10 on Raspberry

Microsoft brings in added flavour to IoT using cloud connectivity and support. The devices connect to the windows 10 and communicate with each other in an instant. All you need to get started is a public release of windows 10, windows 10 IoT core dashboard. Oh, and a Raspberry Pi 2.

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This IoT project is available at: Windows 10 IoT Core for Raspberry Pi 2

Communicating with Arduino through Android

Want to send text from your Android phone to your Arduino? This next project describes how to do so. All you need is an Android phone, an Arduino, an arduino USB cable, a USB OTG cable and Android Studio. This good thing about this project, it can be made by people proficient with software.

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This IoT Project is available at: Arduino through Android

Alarm Clock

This project brings in a Raspberry Pi for people working with development boards. When a simple alarm clock is not enough and you need an alarm, clock controlled by your phone, this Raspberry Pi could come to your rescue. You would be able to program different radio stations per different alarms; e.g., news channel for weekdays, music for weekends.

This IoT project is available at: IoT alarm clock

Temperature transmission using Raspberry Pi

An IoT project idea went from idea to make with this next project. It demonstrates interfacing a Raspberry Pi to an I2C temperature sensor (TMP102) and then publishing the data to a Google sheet and graph. All you need is a Raspberry Pi, I2C temperature sensor and a google account. Hopefully this next project helps you in designing this system.

This IoT Project is available at: Temperature transmission on Raspberry Pi

Wearable LED with Intel Edison

Have you ever imagined a world where you can change the pattern of a dress with a push of the button? Or one where you can change the height of a hem with a swipe of your finger? Using a Bluetooth enabled microcontroller and Android phone, this project gives you control over a strip of RGB LEDs. These LEDs can be put anywhere, on a pair of boots, in a jacket or on a bike helmet.

This IoT Project is available at: Wearable LED with Intel Edison

House monitoring using Arduino and Raspberry Pi

If you have a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino and you could develop a system to monitor and control your home. This next project helps you in designing a home automation system. The Pi has GPIOs that are great for simple Boolean tasks (On or Off) and for reading a cheap temperature sensor. Whereas you’ll probably want to use an Arduino microcontroller to do the heavy work.

This IoT project is available at: Home automation

IoT Projects: Home Automation

Home Automation

IoT is rapidly transforming the destiny of devices which are placed at a core with a specified task in our world. These devices can interact among themselves and with humans. The extensive use of sensors is just one of the distinctive factors. That being said, there are various techniques to implement gesture control for home appliances too. Hand gestures are simple and easy to implement while using electronic components which are mentioned in this next IoT project.

This IoT project is available at: Home automation using hand gesture

Smart Garage Door

Gone are the days when you had to kick open the garage door or use the bulky electronic key which falls out of battery power every now and then. If you would like to keep up with the trend, this project is for you. Designing this project would help you put away that annoying clicker that keeps getting lost. Using a smartphone’s built-in communication technology, this replaces the clicker with your smart phone.

This IoT project is available at: Garage door clicker

Automated Blinds

Automation is getting the best of everything around and even blinders are not spaces. Hilariously enough, if you wish to start setting up automation at home using your own efforts, it would be great to start with blinders. With you can win laurels while they open and close at your will. Happy DIY times are ahead. This next DIY is also being quoted as the cheapest DIY. What do you feel?

This IoT project is available at: Automated blinds

IoT Projects: Smart Cities

Baggage Tracker

When you say that only 1% of baggage is lost during air travel, it sounds like a very small number. However, when we move to absolute numbers, 1% from billions of travellers is still a huge number. The next bag that they lose might be yours. This DIY builds a system that tracks your baggage even while it is in the air. Build it, keep it in your bag and you can track all the details from your phone.

This IoT project is available at: Baggage Tracking

Smart Trash Collector

In real world use-case for a smart-city, a command center could monitor the amount of trash in and around an area or city. The respective Municipal departments can optimise garbage pickup timings and personnel required to send vehicles to pick up trash to designated places while cutting down on expenses of fuel and vehicle emission. This next project designs a rather unique innovation using Internet of things which is to monitor the usage trash in a smart trash can.

This IoT project is available at: Smart Trash Collection

Liquid Level Monitor

With IoT it is possible to build simple automation devices that can help reduce the wastage of natural resources. Cities with less access to potable water are struggling either due to low supply or wastage due to overflow. Conserving water has now become a technology use case as there is a need to act on it. With this next project, you could have your own monitoring system to prevent wastage of water.

This IoT project is available at: Web based Liquid Monitoring System

Smart Office System

This next project lists out a smart, cost effective and easily installable solution to make office resources like meeting rooms IoT enabled. You can see meeting room availability in real time with this Intel Edison powered project. This solution would provide status of Conference Rooms or Meeting Rooms availability in the Real time and Teams can plan their meetings effectively and would make optimum use of meeting rooms in any office avoiding unnecessary wait time.

This IoT Project is available at: Smart Office System

Facial Recognition Door

Self-built home security projects are some of the most popular DIY projects because they can be lower cost and lower profile than bulky professional installations. Here’s a project that controls entry access using facial recognition, thanks to Microsoft’s Project Oxford. This project from Mazudo is based on Raspberry Pi and Windows IoT.

This IoT Project is available at: Facial Recognition Door

IoT Projects: Industrial Automation

Industry Automation

This next project proposes efficient industry automation system that allows users to efficiently control industry appliances/machines over the internet. For demonstration of this system there are 3 loads as industrial appliances or machines and a motor to demonstrate as an industrial motor. The system uses an AVR family microcontroller for processing all user commands. A Wi-Fi modem is used to connect to the internet and receive user commands.

This IoT Project is available at: Industry Automation

Vehicle Simulation

Thinking of building an IoT-enabled vehicle?  Using a Beaglebone Black, Douglas Wong and the team created an open-source application that gives you an environment to test your potential application. It simulates a real vehicle. And it’s a MUST HAVE if you are creating one of those 26 billion IoT devices.  Because the car that can stop accidents from happening is going to be the must-have car of 2020.

This IoT project is available at: Vehicle Simulation

IoT Projects: Robotics

Life Size BB-8 Droid

If you are Star War fans like us, you would probably like this next project. Here we have a well-documented tutorial for building an awesome Life-sized, Arduino powered, phone-controlled BB-8 droid. The interesting part is, the designer uses household material and an Arduino for a microcontroller. This project does not even require 3D printers, CNCs or milling machines

This IoT Project is available at: Building BB-8 Droid

RC Robot

This next IoT project idea would be a simple answer to how a connected car works using the capabilities of ESP8266. The ESP8266 costing about $5, is a Wi-Fi module with about 4.82 km range with a Ubiquiti M2 dish. So how does controlling a car in your home, while you sit back in your office sound? Should be an interesting take along the lines of building an IoT project.

This IoT project is available at: RC robot

IoT Projects: Miscellaneous

Hanging Bluetooth

How does adding a Bluetooth to a fan sound. The nRF51 is a system-on-chip with a Cortex M0 and a BLE radio chip all in one. All you need is a device that has the nRF51, a wireless ceiling fan remote, some NMOS transistors, small gauge wire and a tool chain setup. Finally, you can afford to lose the clicker. Let’s check it out in the next project.

This IoT Project is available at: BLE in a Ceiling Fan

Animated Mini-Golf

Exploding volcanoes, dinosaurs, and animatronic tiki guards! This isn’t your classic game of mini golf. Putt up the wooden bridge into the mouth of the volcano and trigger an explosion that just might roll your ball in for a hole-in-one. Miss by just a little, and subject yourself to the laughter of the swinging tiki guards protecting the hole.

This IoT Project is available at: Animated Mini Golf

This is in no way an extensive list of IoT projects. It is an ever-developing field, and we expect newer projects to keep coming up. If you have some IoT projects, tell us in the comment section below.