iToy: A LEGO-like Solution for Small Scale IoT Applications

Abstract

We can find various Internet of Things (IoT) products available in the market to accommodate users needs. Current IoT applications, however, built delicately for their usage with their own sensor devices and Apps. This limitation thus prevents users from handling flexible situations. In this paper, we propose iToy, an LEGO-like solution to integrate various off-the-shelf sensors for different IoT applications. In iToy, the off-the-shelf sensors are like LEGO plastic bricks, which can be assembled and connected to construct IoT applications. Any sensors constructed in an IoT application can be taken apart again and then used to make other IoT applications. We demonstrate through proof-of-concept prototype that iToy is user-friendly and suitable for forming different small scale IoT applications.