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How to turn your smartphone into an IoT device

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An Azure IoT solution lets you connect your IoT devices to a cloud-based IoT service. Devices send telemetry, such as temperature and humidity and respond to commands such as reboot and change delivery interval. Devices can also synchronize their internal state with the service, sharing properties such as device model and operating system.

The IoT Plug and Play phone app lets you quickly get started exploring Azure IoT capabilities without the need to configure a dedicated IoT device.

Azure IoT Plug and Play app

To get you started quickly, this article uses a smartphone app as an IoT device. The app sends telemetry collected from the phone's sensors, responds to commands invoked from the service, and reports property values.

You can use this smartphone app to:

  • Explore a basic IoT scenario.
  • Manage and interact with your phone remotely.
  • Test your configuration.
  • As a starting point for your custom device development.

Install the app

Install the app on your smartphone from one of the app stores:

Get the app for your Android phone on Google Play. Download the app for your phone from the App Store.

App features

Connect

You can connect to an IoT Central application by scanning a QR code in IoT Central.

To learn more, see Connect the app later in this guide.

Telemetry

The app collects data from sensors on the phone to send as telemetry to the IoT service you're using. Sensor data is aggregated every five seconds by default, but you can change this period on the app settings page:

Screenshot of telemetry page in smartphone app.

The following screenshot shows a device view in IoT Central that displays some of the device telemetry:

Screenshot of device telemetry in IoT Central.

Properties

The app reports device status, such as device model and manufacturer. There's also an editable property that you can modify and see the change synchronize in your AzureIoT solution:

Screenshot that shows properties page in mobile device app.

The following screenshot shows the writable property in IoT Central after the property was sent to the device:

Screenshot that shows the writable property in IoT Central.

Image upload

Both IoT Central and IoT Hub enable file upload to Azure storage from a device. The smartphone app lets you upload an image from the device.

To learn more about configuring your service to support file uploads from a device, see:

Screenshot that shows the image upload page in the smartphone app.

Logs

The smartphone app writes events to a local log file that you can view from within the app. Use the log file to troubleshoot and better understand what the app is doing:

Screenshot that shows the log page in the smartphone app.

Settings

The settings page in the app lets you:

  • Connect the app to your Azure IoT solution.
  • Review the current device registration information.
  • Reset the app by clearing the stored data.
  • Customize the app appearance.
  • Set the frequency that the app sends telemetry to your IoT service.

Screenshot of the settings page in the smartphone app.

Connect the app

Prerequisites

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Create an IoT Central application. To learn more, see Create an IoT Central application.

Register a device

Before you connect the phone app, you need to register a device in your IoT Central application. When you create a device registration, IoT Central generates the device connection information.

To register the device in IoT Central:

  1. Sign in to your IoT Central application and navigate to the Devices page.

  2. Select Create a device.

  3. On the Create a new device page, select Create:

    Screenshot showing how to create a device in IoT Central.

  4. On the list of devices, click on the device name and then select Connect. On the Device connection page you can see the QR code to scan in the smartphone app in the next section:

    Screenshot showing the device connection page with the QR code.

Connect the device

After you register the device in IoT Central, you can connect the smartphone app by scanning the QR code. To connect the app:

  1. Open the IoT PnP app on your smartphone.

  2. On the welcome page, select Scan QR code. Point the phone's camera at the QR code. Then wait for a few seconds while the connection is established.

  3. On the telemetry page in the app, you can see the data the app is sending to IoT Central. On the logs page, you can see the device connecting and several initialization messages.

  4. On the Settings > Registration page, you can see the device ID and ID scope that the app used to connect to IoT Central.

To learn more about how devices connect to IoT Central, see How devices connect.

Verify the connection

To view the data the device is sending in your IoT Central application:

  1. Sign in to your IoT Central application and navigate to the Devices page. Your device is automatically assigned to the Smartphone device template.

    Tip

    You may need to refresh the page in your web browser to see when the device is assigned to the Smartphone device template.

  2. On the list of devices, click on the device name and then select Overview. The Overview page shows the telemetry from the smartphone sensors:

    Screenshot of the device overview page in IoT Central that shows the telemetry from the smartphone sensors.

  3. View the About page to see the properties sent by the device.

  4. On the Commands page, run the LightOn command to turn on the phone's flashlight.

Tip

The Raw data page shows all the data coming from the device.

Next steps

Now that your smartphone app is connected to IoT Central, a suggested next step is to learn more about IoT Central.