Beginner IoT Lab Setup: From Zero to First Prototype

You don’t need a huge budget to start. Here’s a lean, effective starter lab:

You don’t need a huge budget to start. Here’s a lean, effective starter lab:

Core Hardware

2× ESP32 or ESP32-S3 boards (Wi‑Fi + BT).

1× Raspberry Pi (broker + dashboard host).

Sensors: temp/humidity, PIR, light, button, relay.

Dedicated SSID/VLAN for lab devices.

MQTT broker on the Pi (Mosquitto/EMQX).

Simple dashboard (Node-RED/Grafana) for quick views.

Flash via USB; enable OTA early.

Version firmware in git; keep a changelog.

Start with one publish/subscribe loop; add sensors incrementally.

Unique credentials per device; avoid hardcoded shared secrets.

mTLS to the broker if feasible; otherwise plan rotation.

Keep the lab segmented from your main LAN.

Publish temp/humidity every 10–30s.

Add a button → relay control loop.

Create a small alert: if temp > threshold, toggle relay and publish an alert.

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