Communicating with a microcontroller over the Internet is easy. All you need is a networked PC or smartphone, a local area network (LAN), and another computer connected to the ATmega32 over a serial link. The basis for this series of articles is a system in which a Fritz!Box router provides the LAN, and a Raspberry Pi is used as a network gateway. In the first instalment we present the basic concept and describe some typical hardware.