IoT Application Development Using MIT App Inventor to Collect and Analyze Sensor Data

The rapid development of low-cost sensors, smart. devices, communication networks, and learning algorithms has enabled data-driven decision making in large-scale systems. However, the development platforms for such Internet of Things (IoT) applications and collecting the data in a cohesive, yet simple manner is not very well understood. MIT App Inventor [1] is an open-source, user-friendly interface to develop mobile applications and has been used by over ten million users worldwide. We have added loT capability to the MIT App Inventor platform where people can build applications using various sensors and IoT platforms such as Raspberry Pi [2] and Android Things [3] to collect the data through mobile applications. This poster paper presents a realization of easy to program loT applications in the mobile application space with a focus on collecting data from the connected sensors. We have integrated the Android Things platform with the MIT App Inventor and introduced the existing MIT App Inventor community to the loT based App development. This integration allows not only the seasoned developers, but also the novice developers to make interesting loT applications with minimal programming knowledge.