Traditionally building Internet of Things (IoT) devices using a platform such as the Raspberry Pi required you to know a little about electronics. You needed to either solder or use a breadboard to connect sensors or servos or whatever to the Raspberry Pi header / GPIO pins correctly. Plus you needed to know when to use a resistor or other component appropriately. The GrovePi+ from Dexter Industries provides a really easy to use Plug-n-Play platform for building IoT devices such as home automation, monitoring or any other Internet of Things scenario!

What is the GrovePi+ Platform?

The GrovePi+ Platform is a Plug-n-Play IoT platform that removes the need for soldering or using a breadboard when building or prototyping an Internet of Things (IoT) project. This allows you to focus on programming the device and the other cloud components of an IoT solutions without having to worry about the electronics side of things. The really helps speed up the prototyping and development process.

The GrovePi (if you can’t already tell from its name) is built for the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is a really powerful, tiny, cheap computer that can be used to build both simple and advanced IoT projects. The GrovePi is a HAT that just plugs into the header / GPIO pins of the Raspberry Pi without requiring any prior electronics knowledge. Then you plugin the different Grove Modules, such as a temperature sensor, LED, switch, OLED display, and many more to one of the available the GrovePi ports, and that’s it! Once the hardware is connected you can start programming your new device.

Here’s a list of a few of the benefits and features of the GrovePi+ from Dexter Industries:

• Electronics platform built for developers
• Easy to use Plug-n-Play modules
• Built for Internet of Things
• Over 100 Grove Modules are available
• No soldering or electronics knowledge necessary

The GrovePi may sound too good to be true, but it’s really an amazing platform to get started building IoT devices or start prototyping that next great IoT idea!

The GrovePi+ board by itself sells for only $29.99 USD, and is available on Amazon.

Available Grove Modules

The Grove Platform currently has 100+ Grove Modules available including sensors, displays, relays, and more!

Here’s a short list of some of the most popular Grove Modules available:

• Button
• LED Socket Kit
• Switch(P)
• Light Sensor
• Line Finder
• Buzzer
• Relay
• Rotary Angle Sensor
• Temperature Sensor
• Sound Sensor
• Vibration Sensor
• Ultrasonic Ranger
• PIR Motion Sensor
• OLED Display 96×96
• Magnetic Switch
• Touch Sensor
• RTC
• Thumb Joystick
• 3-Axis Digital Accelerometer
• Temperature and Humidity Sensor
• Alcohol Sensor
• 2-Coil Latching Relay
• Air Quality Sensor
• Collision Sensor
• Dry-Reed Relay
• Electromagnet
• Flame Sensor
• Gas Sensor
• HCHO Sensor
• OLED Display 128×64
• Infrared Reflective Sensor
• MOSFET
• Piezo Vibration Sensor
• Single Axis Analog Gyro
• Slide Potentiometer
• Solid State Relay
• SPDT Relay(30A)
• Tilt Switch
• Water Sensor
• 4-Digit Display
• 80cm Infrared Proximity Sensor
• Barometer Sensor
• Chainable RGB LED
• 3-Axis Digital Compass
• Electricity Sensor
• 3-Axis Digital Accelerometer
• Digital Light Sensor
• LED Bar
• Loudness Sensor

This is just a short list of some of the over 100 Grove Modules available.

GrovePi+ Starter Kit

Getting started with any platform can be tricky as it can be difficult to know what to get. Fortunately the GrovePi+ Starter Kit is available. This kit contains the GrovePi+ board along with 12 Grove sensors to get you started building just about any Internet of Things (IoT) project you can think of. Plus, it’s all come in a plastic storage case to easily keep everything in.

Here’s a list of the Grove Modules / Sensors that come in the GrovePi+ Starter Kit:

• Sound Sensor
• Temperature and Humidity
• Light Sensors
• Relay
• Button
• Ultrasonic Ranger
• Rotary Angle Sensor
• LCD RGB Sensor
• Buzzer
• Red LED
• Blue LED
• Green LED

The kit also comes with a few other essential items:

• GrovePi Board
• GrovePi Quick Start Guide
• Plastic Storage Box
• Sensor Cables

The entire GrovePi+ Starter Kit is sold for $89.99 USD and is available from Amazon.

It’s important to note that the GrovePi+ Starter Kit does NOT include a Raspberry Pi so that will need to be purchased seperately.

GrovePi Programming

Programming devices using the GrovePi+ is easily done using the available SDKs. The GrovePi supports programming Internet of Things (IoT) devices in a handful of languages:

• Scratch
• Python
• NodeJS
• Go
• C
• C#

var board = new Board({
    debug: true,
    onError: function(err) {
        console.log('Something wrong just happened')
        console.log(err)
    },
    onInit: function(res) {
        if (res) {
            console.log('GrovePi Version :: ' + board.version())

            var lightSensor = new LightAnalogSensor(2)
            console.log('Light Analog Sensor (start watch)')
            lightSensor.on('change', function(res) {
                console.log('Light onChange value=' + res)
            })
            lightSensor.watch()
        }
    }
})

The GrovePi+ also support development using the Windows IoT Core so you can easily program your IoT devices using Visual Studio, C#, and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) App. In fact Microsoft recently releases the Microsoft IoT Grove Kit for Raspberry Pi based on the GrovePi+ platform.

There are a bunch of resources for programming the GrovePi with Windows IoT Core available on the Dexter Industries website.

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