COURSE DESCRIPTION
Listen closely.
This isn’t another boring “IoT introduction” where you memorize buzzwords and definitions.
This is where you roll up your sleeves, fire up Contiki-NG, and actually build Smart Home systems — alarms, gates, sensors, and cloud dashboards — inside the Cooja simulator.
For 12 weeks, you’ll stop being a passive learner and start acting like a real IoT engineer. You’ll code apps, simulate multi-hop networks, measure energy usage, connect devices to the cloud, and secure them against attacks.
And here’s the kicker: the exact same code you’ll write in this course is the kind OEMs flash into their real devices.
That means when you’re done here, you’ll know how to build IoT systems that can move from simulation to reality — with zero fluff.
CERTIFICATION
Most certificates floating around Nigeria aren’t worth the printer ink. Employers laugh at them. Clients ignore them. You know it. I know it.
That’s why ours is different.
You don’t “attend” and get a certificate. You earn it.
To get certified, you’ll need to:
- Complete at least 80% of labs (no excuses).
- Submit your Smart Home Capstone Project.
- Defend your system in a final live session.
Only then do you get the Phoenyx Security Academy Certificate — verifiable, respected, and tied to real IoT engineering skills.
This isn’t a souvenir. It’s a weapon.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this program, you’ll actually be able to:
✔ Install and configure Contiki-NG + Cooja like a pro.
✔ Write event-driven IoT apps (timers, processes, protothreads).
✔ Simulate broadcast, unicast, and multi-hop communication.
✔ Build RPL-based IPv6 networks and trace them with Wireshark.
✔ Profile energy use with Powertrace to extend device lifetime.
✔ Automate Smart Home scenarios (alarms, gates, sensors, HVAC).
✔ Push IoT data to the cloud using MQTT/REST.
✔ Secure your system by detecting and analyzing threats.
✔ Deliver a portfolio-ready Smart Home project you can show employers or clients.
CAPSTONE PROJECT
This is where everything comes together.
You’ll design and simulate a full Smart Home system inside Cooja:
- Alarm system triggered by motion.
- Gate/Door automation sequence.
- Environmental monitoring (temperature, light).
- Cloud integration with a real-time dashboard.
Your final submission proves you can design, build, and defend a working IoT Smart Home.
ASSESSMENT
- Weekly Labs – 30%
- Smart Home Capstone Project – 40%
- Final Certification Defense – 20%
- Participation – 10%
THE INVESTMENT
Let’s be blunt.
This isn’t a ₦5,000 “quick certificate” scam.
This is 12 weeks of real IoT engineering skills — skills that companies pay for, clients abroad will hire for, and startups will build products with.
The total fee is ₦100,000.
Still think that’s “expensive”? Then do yourself a favor: close this page. This course isn’t for you.
But if you’re serious about IoT, Smart Homes, and being employable in the global market… this is the best ₦100,000 you’ll ever spend.
👉 Early Bird: First 20 students slash 10–15% off.
👉 Institutions: Enroll 5+ students? Get 10% off.
👉 Bundle Deal: Grab this + Malicious Python3 Programming for just ₦150,000.
COURSE FEATURES
- Lectures: 30+
- Labs: 12 (hands-on, simulation-based)
- Quizzes: Optional self-tests
- Duration: 12 weeks
- Skill Level: Intermediate
- Language: English
- Mode: 100% Online (Simulation only, no hardware needed)
- Certification: Yes — verifiable, skill-based
- Capstone Projects: Yes — full Smart Home system
⚡ When you’re done, you won’t just know “about IoT.”
You’ll be the one people call when they need IoT systems built, tested, and secured.
Course Features
- Lectures 41
- Quiz 0
- Duration 10 weeks
- Skill level All levels
- Language English
- Students 0
- Certificate No
- Assessments Yes
- 13 Sections
- 41 Lessons
- 10 Weeks
Expand all sectionsCollapse all sections
- WEEK 0: LAB SET UPListen up. Before you even dream of building smart homes, simulating IoT attacks, or impressing your friends with how “techy” you are… You need a lab. And no, I’m not talking about a room with blinking lights and expensive gadgets. I’m talking about setting up a battlefield right on your laptop. Here’s the deal: We’ll grab Oracle VirtualBox (your virtual playground). Then, we’ll install Contiki-NG (the same operating system researchers across the globe use to run wireless sensor networks). Why VirtualBox? Because it lets you create “pretend computers” inside your real computer. No risk, no crashes, no frying your machine. You mess up? Delete it and start again. Why Contiki-NG? Because it’s the backbone of everything you’re going to learn in this course. Without it, you’ve got nothing but hot air. In this section, I’ll walk you through, step by step, like I’m holding your hand: Where to download VirtualBox (the real one, not some shady knockoff). How to install it without wanting to smash your keyboard. Setting up Contiki-NG like a pro — so it actually works the first time. By the end of Week 0, you’ll have your lab up and running. Your laptop will no longer be just a laptop. It’ll be your command center — where you’ll deploy nodes, simulate attacks, and tinker with smart home devices… all without buying a single bulb, lock, or sensor. Week 0 is where the rubber meets the road. Skip it, and you’re just another wannabe. Do it right, and you’re ready to join the big leagues.2
- WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION TO WSN & CONTIKI-NGListen up. This is where it all begins. Forget the hype, forget the buzzwords — if you don’t understand Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and how they power IoT, you’re just another guy talking tech on WhatsApp groups. In Week 1, we rip the cover off: You’ll discover what WSNs really are — tiny devices talking to each other, forming invisible webs that control smart homes, smart cities, and smart factories. You’ll get a guided tour of Contiki & Contiki-NG, the open-source operating system running behind the scenes in academic labs and industry R&D. This is the OS researchers use to build prototypes before hardware even ships. You’ll set up your own Contiki-NG environment (Linux recommended) — no fluff, just the actual tools pros use. And then the fun part: you’ll dive into Cooja and run your first “Hello, World” IoT simulation. No boring theory. You’ll make code run on virtual motes from Day 1. By the time you’re done with Week 1, you won’t just “know about” WSN and Contiki-NG. You’ll have them installed, running, and responding to your commands. That’s how we start. Hands on. No excuses.3
- WEEK 2: CONTIKI-NG PROGRAMMING BASICSNow that you’ve dipped your toes into Contiki-NG, it’s time to roll up your sleeves. This week, you stop being a tourist and start being a programmer of IoT systems. Here’s the deal: Contiki-NG isn’t like Python where you print “Hello World” and feel smart. It’s event-driven, built for devices with less memory than your old Nokia. You’ll learn protothreads — the secret sauce that makes tiny devices multitask without crashing. You’ll master event-driven coding, timers, and the Contiki process model. And yes, you’ll finally create your first real embedded app. Your first project? The famous blinking LED program — the IoT equivalent of firing your first bullet at the shooting range. Simple, but powerful. By the end of Week 2, you’ll no longer be “watching simulations.” You’ll be the guy writing code that runs on virtual motes. You’ll know the syntax, the structure, and the workflow. Most people quit here because they realize IoT is tougher than PowerPoint. But you? You’ll be grinning as your LED blinks inside Cooja — proof that you’re now building embedded IoT apps with your own hands.3
- WEEK 3: CONCURRENCY & TIMERSThis is where you level up from blinking lights to making your motes think in time. Here’s the ugly truth: real IoT devices don’t sit around waiting for one job to finish before starting another. They’ve got sensors to read, packets to send, alarms to trigger — all at once. If you try to code them like your laptop, they’ll choke. That’s why Contiki-NG gives you concurrency tools that squeeze miracles out of low-power chips. You’ll learn processes and protothreads — Contiki’s way of faking multitasking without frying the CPU. You’ll play with etimer, ctimer, and rtimer — timers so precise they let your mote wake up, do its job, and go back to sleep before you even blink. You’ll see how to schedule tasks, repeat them, and coordinate multiple events like a maestro. And in the lab? You’ll build a system that reads a sensor at regular intervals, processes the data, and spits it out like clockwork. This week, you stop being a button-pusher and become a timekeeper of IoT systems. You’ll know how to keep your motes alive longer, smarter, and in sync — while the “theory guys” are still doodling flowcharts. By the end of Week 3, you won’t just understand timers… you’ll own time inside your simulations.3
- WEEK 4: COMMUNICATION BETWEEN MOTESNow it’s time to make your motes talk to each other. Because let’s face it—what’s the point of a “smart” device if it’s sitting there in silence? This week is all about teaching machines to gossip. Here’s the deal: You’ll start with broadcast — shouting to the whole neighborhood like a town crier. Then you’ll move to unicast — whispering directly into one device’s ear. Finally, you’ll play with collect communication, where little devices pass messages up the chain until the boss (the sink) gets the memo. And the beauty of it? You’ll use Rime — Contiki-NG’s lightweight communication stack designed for low-power IoT. No bloat. No nonsense. Just raw, efficient packet-slinging. In the lab, you’ll set up a network where motes send and receive messages. You’ll actually watch packets fly across your simulated network in COOJA — like eavesdropping on robots having a secret conversation. By the end of Week 4, you won’t just know how to “configure communication.” You’ll command the airwaves. You’ll tell your devices who to talk to, when, and how — while everyone else is still Googling “what is a packet?” This is the week you become the IoT whisperer.3
- WEEK 5: NETWORKING IN CONTIKI-NGHere’s the truth: Talking one-to-one (unicast) or shouting to everyone (broadcast) is cute… but real IoT isn’t cute. It’s brutal. It’s hundreds, sometimes thousands of devices scattered across a smart home, a farm, or a city. And they all need to pass data back and forth without collapsing in chaos. That’s where networking kicks in. This week, you’ll: Peel back the curtain on 6LoWPAN — the genius compression trick that lets IPv6 (normally bloated and heavy) squeeze into tiny, low-power IoT radios. Dive into IPv6 networking in Contiki-NG — because yes, your “little motes” actually speak the same language as the global internet. Meet RPL (Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks) — the backbone that organizes your motes into a hierarchy (a DODAG, which is basically a “family tree for packets”). And then comes the lab 🔬: You’ll simulate a multi-hop UDP network in COOJA. That means one mote will send a message that hops through several devices before reaching its destination — just like in real smart homes or sensor grids. You’ll also fire up Wireshark to watch the packets crawl across the network, compressed, routed, and delivered. By the end of Week 5, you’ll have a working IPv6 + RPL IoT network, not a toy example. You’ll be able to point at your screen and say: “See that packet? It just jumped across three motes to reach the sink node. And I built the damn thing.” This is where you stop being “the student tinkering in labs” and start being the engineer who builds IoT networks that actually scale.4
- WEEK 6: SENSORS & ACTUATORSUp till now, you’ve been making motes talk to each other. Cute. But let’s face it: nobody pays you to blink LEDs. They pay you when your code moves the real world. That’s where sensors and actuators come in. This week, we’re ripping IoT out of theory and into reality: You’ll tap into sensors — temperature, light, motion. These are the eyes and ears of your network. Without them, your devices are deaf and blind. Then, you’ll command actuators — LEDs, buzzers, relays. These are the fists and voices of your network. They do things. They flip switches. They trigger alarms. They make homes “smart.” You’ll learn how Contiki-NG lets you pull raw sensor data, process it, and fire it off to the right actuator. And the lab? This is where the magic happens: 👉 You’ll read live sensor values and make decisions. Motion detected? Trigger a buzzer. Room too hot? Flip the “AC” (okay, an LED) on. Lights off? Trigger an LED glow when someone walks in. By the end of Week 6, you won’t just “see numbers” in the terminal. You’ll control reality from code. That’s when IoT stops being abstract and starts being POWER. This is the week where you feel like Tony Stark in your lab — sensors feeding you data, actuators obeying your every line of code.3
- WEEK 7: SMART HOME PROJECT — ALARM & GATE CONTROLThis is the first big Smart Home build. Everything we’ve done so far has been warm-up drills. Now we start wiring it into something that looks and feels like a real system. Here’s the mission: You’ll design a Central Control Unit (CU) — think of it as the brain of your smart home. This CU will talk to remote motes (your door, your gate, your alarm). From a single point, you’ll lock, unlock, and trigger alarms across the network. The focus this week is control. Not passive monitoring, not “just reading data.” Nope. You’re going to command devices across your mesh, and they will obey. In the lab, you’ll: Configure one mote as the CU. Configure other motes as remote nodes (the “alarm” and the “gate”). Write code so the CU sends commands to remote nodes. Simulate “lock/unlock” and “alarm on/off” by toggling LEDs. Watch as the CU controls the whole home network in real time. By the end of Week 7, you’ll have a working Smart Home skeleton: a control hub that can secure a house and trigger defenses. This is where students usually have the “ lightbulb moment.” They realize: “Holy sht, I can actually build a real IoT system from scratch!”* And that’s exactly what you’ll prove this week.3
- WEEK 8: SMART HOME PROJECT — DOOR & GUEST SIMULATIONNow that your Control Unit (CU) can talk to remote motes (alarm + gate), it’s time to bring in a touch of real life. This week, we simulate people coming and going — doors opening, gates unlocking, guests arriving, alarms arming/disarming. The system is no longer just about commands — it’s about timing and coordination. Here’s the mission: You’ll synchronize door and gate events. When the CU says “open”, the gate opens first, then the door. When it says “close”, the door shuts before the gate. You’ll also simulate a guest crossing scenario (e.g., a timed delay between gate opening and door opening). In the lab, you’ll: Use timers to control event order (gate LED → door LED). Simulate a guest walking in by adding a delay between commands. Code the CU to handle “sequence-based” events (not just single actions). Watch LEDs on different motes blink in perfect order — just like a guest walking through your smart home. Test different timings: too fast, too slow, and “just right.” By the end of Week 8, your simulation will feel alive. You’re not just flipping LEDs anymore — you’re orchestrating events in time. This is where you stop being a coder and start being a Smart Home Systems Engineer.3
- WEEK 9: SMART HOME PROJECT — ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORINGYour smart home isn’t really “smart” until it can see, feel, and respond to the world around it. This week, we make the leap from simple commands (gate/door/alarm) into environmental sensing: Temperature Light (and optionally motion, if you want to get fancy) The Control Unit (CU) now becomes a monitoring hub — not just giving orders, but also collecting and analyzing data. Here’s what you’ll do: Read temperature values from simulated sensors. Each mote acts like a room sensor. The CU will collect readings (every few seconds). Log and process data. CU calculates averages (e.g., over 30 seconds). If it gets too hot → trigger an alert (LED or buzzer). Sense external light. Simulate day/night cycles with random light values. CU uses this to control “lights” (LEDs). Example: lights ON at “night,” OFF at “day.” Display collected data. CU outputs logs in Cooja’s Serial Monitor.3
- WEEK 10: CLOUD INTEGRATIONA smart home sitting inside Cooja is cool… but a smart home that sends data to the cloud is the real deal. This week, you’ll learn how to bridge the gap between your Contiki-NG simulation and the outside world. Here’s what you’ll learn: Why Cloud Integration Matters Local control is fine… but what if you want to: Check your house temperature while you’re abroad? Turn lights off from your phone? Store data for long-term analysis? That’s where MQTT and REST APIs come in. MQTT Basics in IoT Lightweight protocol for IoT messaging. Publisher (sensor node) → Broker → Subscriber (your phone/dashboard). Why MQTT beats heavy HTTP for IoT. Using RESTful APIs in Contiki-NG How to send sensor data using simple GET/POST. Connecting Contiki motes to external servers (even if simulated). Connecting Cooja to the Outside World Use the Cooja slip-radio or tunslip6 to bridge motes with your PC. From there, packets can flow into MQTT brokers (e.g., Mosquitto) or online dashboards. Lab Challenge: Send Data to the Cloud Simulate temperature sensors in Cooja. CU (Control Unit) collects readings. CU publishes readings to an MQTT broker (local Mosquitto). Use a free online dashboard (e.g., ThingsBoard / Ubidots / Node-RED) to visualize the data in real time.3
- WEEK 11: SECURITY IN IOT WITH CONTIKI-NGYou’ve built a beautiful smart home system in Cooja… But here’s the truth: every packet you send can be sniffed, replayed, or spoofed. This week, you’ll put on your hacker hat first , then your defender shield . Here’s what you’ll learn: Common IoT Threats (with real-world examples) Packet sniffing → attacker reads your packets (your smart lock status exposed). Replay attacks → attacker replays old unlock packets, opening your door. Spoofing → attacker pretends to be a legitimate node in your network. Why IoT networks are more vulnerable than normal Wi-Fi. Link-Layer Security Basics IEEE 802.15.4 security features in Contiki-NG. Encryption & authentication at the MAC layer. Using AES-CCM mode for confidentiality & integrity. RPL Security in Contiki-NG Securing routing messages (DIS, DIO, DAO). How to prevent “fake parent” or rank manipulation attacks. Limitations of the built-in RPL security modes. Wireshark as a Hacker Tool Capture unencrypted packets. Spot sensitive information (sensor values, lock/unlock commands). Replay them in theory. Wireshark as a Defender Tool Turn on Contiki-NG security settings. Re-capture packets → see encrypted blobs instead of plain text. Confirm replayed packets no longer work. Lab Challenge: Secure vs Insecure Traffic Step 1 — Insecure Network: Run a small Contiki-NG simulation (2 motes + CU). Send temperature + unlock/lock messages. Capture traffic in Wireshark. Observe packets in plain text. Step 2 — Enable Security: Configure Contiki-NG motes with link-layer security (AES-CCM). Re-run the simulation. Capture traffic again. Now you’ll see encrypted data — unreadable to outsiders. Step 3 — Attempt Replay: Re-inject an old “unlock” packet (using Wireshark replay or script). Observe how security counters (nonce + sequence numbers) reject the replay. What you achieve this week: Identify real IoT threats in action (sniffing, replay, spoofing). Enable link-layer and RPL security in Contiki-NG. Use Wireshark both as a hacker tool and a defender tool. Gain confidence that your simulated smart home is secure against basic attacks. Your system is no longer a sitting duck. You’ve taken the leap from builder to defender.3
- WEEK 12: CAPSTONE PROJECT & CERTIFICATIONIn this final week, students bring together everything learned throughout the course to design, build, and demonstrate a complete smart home simulation in Contiki-NG. The project integrates all major components — alarm system, door/gate automation, environmental sensing, and cloud reporting — into a working system managed by a central unit. Students will test and debug their simulations, verify security using Wireshark, and stress-test the mesh network under realistic conditions. The week concludes with a final demo and certification defense, where each student presents their project, explains their design choices, and demonstrates their ability to build, secure, and troubleshoot a smart home IoT system. By the end of this week, participants will have produced a capstone project that showcases their skills and will earn the Phoenyx Certified Smart Home Engineer (Contiki-NG Edition) certification.5
