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Internet of Things (IoT) on Cardano

This section is a hands-on course for connecting microcontrollers to Cardano. Across five workshops you will set up a wallet, fetch on-chain data with an ESP32, drive displays and relays from blockchain events, push sensor data on-chain as transactions and NFTs, build a Cardano price ticker, and finish with a working QR-code payment terminal that listens for confirmations on the Preprod testnet.

The material was originally produced as the CardanoThings course (Project Catalyst Fund 11). The canonical web version remains at cardanothings.io; the canonical source code is at github.com/CardanoThings/Workshops.

What you'll build​

  • Workshop 01 - The Basics. Wallet on Preprod, Arduino IDE setup, your first Koios API call from an ESP32.
  • Workshop 02 - Read and Output. Fetch wallet balance on a schedule, display data on a TFT, drive a relay, build an Epoch Clock on a WS2812 ring.
  • Workshop 03 - Input and Write. Read an AHT10 sensor, build a Node.js + Mesh API, push sensor data on-chain as transaction metadata and NFTs.
  • Workshop 04 - Cardano Ticker. A multi-screen TFT ticker showing wallet balance, token prices (MinSwap), and NFT floors (Cexplorer).
  • Workshop 05 - QR-Code Payments. A microcontroller-hosted webserver, CIP-13 payment URIs, on-screen QR code, and on-chain payment confirmation via Koios.

Prerequisites​

Hardware

  • An ESP32 or ESP8266 microcontroller. Most workshops use the ESP32 Cheap Yellow Display (CYD) for its built-in TFT; an ESP32-C3 with an I2C OLED works as well.
  • USB data cable (not charge-only).
  • Workshop-specific extras: relay module (W2), AHT10 sensor (W3), WS2812 LED ring (W2), breadboard and jumper wires.

Software

  • Arduino IDE
  • A Cardano wallet on Preprod Testnet (Yoroi is used in the workshops)
  • Node.js 14+ for Workshop 03 and 05 backend pieces

Knowledge

  • Comfort with C-like syntax (Arduino sketches are C++).
  • Some JavaScript helps for Workshop 03 onward.
  • No prior Cardano experience required.

Workshops​

  1. Workshop 01: The Basics - wallet, IDE, first API call.
  2. Workshop 02: Read and Output - fetch, display, control hardware from chain data.
  3. Workshop 03: Input and Write - sensor data on-chain, NFT minting from a microcontroller.
  4. Workshop 04: Cardano Ticker - multi-screen ticker for wallet, tokens, NFTs.
  5. Workshop 05: QR-Code Payments - CIP-13 QR codes and on-chain payment confirmation.

Community projects​

Builds from the community that extend or remix what's covered in this section:

Attribution​

The course was authored by the CardanoThings team and funded by Project Catalyst Fund 11. Source code lives at github.com/CardanoThings/Workshops; the original web version is cardanothings.io.