Editor’s Note - Happy Holidays!

Hi, readers (almost 6 thousand of you!). This is the first IoT Monthly newsletter of 2024. We typically write one newsletter issue per year recapping our favorite things from the previous year. This is the recap issue, with a small twist! Instead of just listing off what I enjoyed posting about in 2023, I’ve asked my recent colleague, Tyeth, to also share their favorite projects from 2023.

If you’re a new reader of this newsletter – welcome! I’m Brent. I’m an engineer at Adafruit who works on all kinds of things, including writing the IoT Monthly. This newsletter was previously known as the Adafruit.io newsletter and only contained news and projects about our Adafruit.io IoT Platform. In 2019, we expanded this newsletter to the broader topic of the Internet of Things. Adafruit’s other newsletters are distributed frequently. But, this newsletter is distributed only once a month, giving us enough time to gather information from around the internet for you. I’d also like to extend a “hug report” (Adafruit parlance for “thank you”) to our copyeditor, Anne, for her behind-the-scenes editing work on these newsletters for the past 3 years.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as I enjoyed putting it together, and I hope you have a wonderful new year, wherever you are in the world.

• Brent

Request for Feedback/Articles: If you have feedback or want to submit your project to this newsletter, email iotnews@adafruit.com.

IoT Projects, in Recap

Tide and Time

Tyeth says: “I’m strangely infatuated with this tide clock (maybe because we have one of the largest tidal ranges here in Bristol, England). The internal mechanisms are surprisingly simple and elegant, with a nicely described build log and great finished product, this one is on my make list for next Christmas.” - HackADay.io

Hot Tub Monitoring Machine

Tyeth says: “Having had to save the family from chemical mishaps in the past, this hot-tub pH+ORP monitoring project is a must for those who like a carefree plunge.” - HackADay.com

Hyepaper

Tyeth says: “I enjoyed growing up with newspapers there to fill you in on the world’s events, and now it’s nice to have ChatGPT provide an AI summarised equivalent in this lovely E-Ink display fed with all your favorite websites.” - HackADay.io

Star Fragment Lamp

Inspired by Star Fragments from video games such as Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, this fully 3D printed star-shaped lamp uses a QT Py ESP32-S2 and NeoPixel LEDs to turn on when the sun rises and off when it sets. – Adafruit Learning System

Guide to Waterproofing Electronics

The Cave Pearl Project has been deploying undersea data loggers since 2013 and knows a thing or two about waterproofing electronics. This post is a summary of the techniques used by the project in waterproofing their data loggers. – The Cave Pearl Project

News, in Recap

I’ve enjoyed reading and learning about the following news articles in 2023…

• In 2022-2023, 28% of US Internet Households Have 3+ Smart Home Devices yet Whirlpool and LG claim customers aren’t connecting their smart appliances to the internet.
• Ethernet turned 50 years old last year! IEEE Spectrum
• X (formerly Twitter) disconnected Internet of Things projects from Tweeting on their platform in 2023 by removing free API access. - X

Support Adafruit

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