My solar panel system's control cabinet had a problem: summer afternoons would turn it into an oven. Sensitive components were getting damaged, and maintenance became uncomfortable. I needed a temperature-controlled ventilation system with real-time monitoring, automatic fan control based on temperature thresholds, and the ability to check conditions remotely from my phone.

The traditional approach was a non-starter. I looked at industrial PLCs first. A basic setup would cost over $200 (PLC, HMI panel, gateway module for remote access), require learning ladder or structured text logic, demand Windows-only programming software, and take more than 3 weekends to get working. For a simple temperature monitoring project, this felt absurd.

Arduino-based solutions were cheaper but created different problems: custom PCB design for reliable I/O, hand-coding MQTT logic, no built-in configuration management, and the classic issue of prototypes that can't scale to production without starting over and rewriting critical firmware.

I had one Saturday afternoon to make this work. My electrical control cabinet was already getting uncomfortably hot, and I needed a solution fast. Budget was another constraint, this was a personal project, so I needed to keep hardware under $100 total. I'm comfortable with programming and electronics, but didn't want to spend weeks learning proprietary industrial automation languages or fighting with vendor-specific tools.

This needed to run 24/7 without babysitting, but it wasn't safety-critical. If the system went offline for a few minutes, nothing would catch fire, I just wanted consistent, reliable operation. And I suspected this would grow. Today it's temperature monitoring; next month I might add humidity sensors, air quality monitors, or lighting control. I needed a system that could scale without architectural rewrites. My household has WiFi but no wired Ethernet drops, so running cables wasn't practical.

Enter Make Things Happy and IoTflow

While researching solutions, I discovered Make Things Happy (makethingshappy.io), a platform specifically designed to bridge the gap between maker-friendly development and production-ready industrial automation. Their approach caught my attention because it solves the exact problem I was facing: getting from idea to working system without choosing between "basic prototype" and "enterprise PLC".

Make Things Happy offers two key technologies: IoTflow (the software framework) and IoTextra (the hardware platform).

IoTflow is a commercially open-source automation framework that replaces traditional PLC programming with tools developers and makers actually want to use: MicroPython for device firmware, MQTT for communication, and Node-RED for automation logic. No ladder logic, no proprietary languages, no Windows-only development tools. The entire framework is on GitHub, fully documented, and uses standard IoT protocols throughout. IoTflow acts as the engine that bridges hardware interfacing with software orchestration.

IoTextra is the hardware side, professional I/O modules designed to work seamlessly with IoTflow (though they're generic I²C/GPIO devices that work with any controller). IoTextra solves the typical maker problem: prototypes work on breadboards but aren't reliable for 24/7 operation. These modules provide industrial-grade signal conditioning with maker-friendly interfaces.

IoTextra comes in three variants:

• Digital Module: 8 digital I/O channels with proper voltage level conversion and protection
• Analog Module: 4 analog input channels (±0-10V or 0-40mA) with 16-bit ADC resolution
• Combo Module: 2 analog + 2 digital channels in one compact unit

These modules communicate via I²C or GPIO and have connectors or screw terminals for field wiring, no breadboard rats' nests, no hand-soldering GPIO protection circuits. The analog inputs have proper signal conditioning, which matters when you're reading sensors in electrically noisy environments....