Smarten Up!

Abstract

This book deals with making things that are provided with embedded intelligence. My hope is that this book will inspire you to develop your own ideas to enhance projects discussed in these pages, and that you will go on to design and build your own projects for many years to come. If you’re new to electronics, or you’ve never dealt with programmable devices before, you may wonder why this approach is better than just using single-purpose devices. So, it seems only fair to prime the pump by looking at some basic ideas about embedded intelligence. Why would we want it? What does it buy us? Where is it useful, and does it have a dark side?