Designing an API for IoT Is a Little Different

If you've built web APIs before, IoT APIs might initially look familiar.

You could have:

GET /devices
GET /devices/{id}
GET /devices/{id}/readings
POST /devices/{id}/commands

But there's an extra concern:

The device itself is part of the system.

You need to know exactly which device is communicating.

You also need to think about authentication.

And then there's unreliable connectivity.

A device might send a message.

Not receive the confirmation.

Send it again.

Now your backend receives the same message twice.

That's where ideas like idempotency become important.

You also have to think about device credentials, rate limits, reconnects, and device status.

So yes, it's still an API.

But you're designing for clients that might be:

Offline
Resource-constrained
Intermittently connected
Running for years

That changes things.