What $300 of IoT Hardware Taught Me

A while ago, I spent around $300 on IoT stuff: a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino, and lots of sensors. At that time, I was very excited. I thought I'd build smart projects, automate things, and do something "cool" with hardware.

Reality was different.

Most of those projects never got completed. Some days I started working, some days I stopped. Slowly, the excitement faded, and the hardware just stayed there on my desk.

At first, I felt bad about it. It felt like wasted money and wasted effort.

But later, I realized it wasn't useless.

Hardware Is Harder Than It Looks

With hardware, even small things matter. One wrong wire or one tiny mistake, and nothing works. There's no clear error message. Things just don't respond. This taught me patience and showed me that real engineering is not as easy as it looks on YouTube.

Buying Things Doesn't Mean You'll Use Them

I also learned that buying many devices doesn't mean you'll learn faster. I bought too much without knowing exactly what I wanted to build. If I had focused on just one board or one sensor, I might have learned more.

Losing Interest Is Normal

At some point, I lost interest, and that's okay. Not every interest turns into a lifelong passion. That doesn't mean the experience was a failure. It just means I learned something about myself.

It Still Gave Me Something Valuable

Even though I didn't finish big projects, I gained perspective. I now respect hardware engineers much more. I also understand better what kind of work I enjoy and what I don't.

Final Thought

That $300 didn't give me finished IoT projects. But it gave me experience, patience, clarity and unexpectedly, the foundation for something bigger.

Recently, I got shortlisted for the YUKTI Innovation Challenge (YIC) 2025 / AICTE Productization Fellowship (APF) 2025 for an Automated IoT solution, representing the West Bengal region. All those hours spent debugging sensors and learning IoT architecture weren't wasted after all.

Sometimes, the things that feel like failures are just seeds that haven't grown yet.