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HackLeumi & thethings.iO

Shalom hackers and makers of the HackLeumi hackathon 2014. We are sad to say that we will not be able to attend the HackLeumi at Tel Aviv in Israel for this reason we will be writing this post instead of our usual #iotfriday.

In this post, we will guide you through the tools and APIs of thethings.iO. We want to help everyone succeed at the hackathon and win the prizes being offered this year. In our video below we will tell you how to register, how to connect things (or processes) and finally how to contact us in case you have any problems.

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3 Internet of Things Protocols #IoTFriday

Happy IoTFriday ! Today we are going to talk about three of the most popular Internet of Things protocols: HTTP, REST, MQTT and CoAP.

 These three protocols are often discussed among experts who decide which one has the best features, security, and lowest cost, among several other important categories. Deciding which protocol should be used depends on your needs and potential uses. At thethings.iO, we have endpoints with REST, MQTT, CoAp and Websockets. (You can find documentation for IoT developers here.)

Marc showing 3 Internet of Things protocols #iotfriday

Marc showing 3 Internet of Things protocols #iotfriday

REST APIs are the most popular of the protocols. Based on HTTP and TCP/IP, it is the most standard used to share information among services on the Internet. REST APIs enable developers to access their data using market standardized methods and formats also known as JSON and XMLs.

MQTT (Message Queue Telemetry Transport) is an IBM open source protocol that offers a light-weight and easy publish-subscribe outlet to the Internet of Things. MQTT is based on TCP/IP in which several platforms are using for atomization of subscriptions and push messages to customers.

Lastly, CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) is a simplification of the HTTP protocol. CoAp is mostly designed for processing restrictions that cannot process or run HTTP on the hardware. Even though it is not a standardized protocol, there are a lot of interesting features such as the observe or discovery methods that will boost the Internet of Things.

 

At thethings.iO, we are offering for developers four Internet of Things protocols. Write us in order to have an invitation and test our Internet of Things real-time platform.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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Does Your Thing Need An Open API? #IoTFriday

Welcome to the newest edition of the  IoTFriday segment at thethings.iO. Today, we are trying to answer some questions we have been receiving asking why one should open their devices on API.

 

Remember that the Internet of Things is a bottom-up technology wave, much like the Web was some years ago. Most of the innovation and new features are coming from makers, hackers and new startups. Opening your things’ APIs allows you to build new features on the top of your things. That means more functionalities for you, which in turn leads to a smarter device and finally brings you more revenue due to third party people.

What do you think? Feel free to send us your feedback and comments!

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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Oktoberfest of Things – #IoTFriday

Welcometo IoTFriday at thethings.iO. This weekend Oktoberfest will be taking place in Munich. For those of you who have never been, it’s a huge, gorgeous party with lots of food and beer. We get the opportunity to co-organize the 3rd edition of the Oktoberfest of Things hackathon. The main goal is to connect Oktoberfest beers to the Internet.

Today at the IoTFriday I’m going to talk about the Oktoberfest of Things and how to connect beers to the Internet.

Oktoberfest of Things whiteboard

Oktoberfest of Things whiteboard

At thethings.iO, we would love to see your projects working with our cloud platform. Feel free to send us your ideas and we will do what we can to help make them real!

Oktoberfest of Things IoTFriday

Oktoberfest of Things IoTFriday

DISCLAIMER: Be careful and don’t mix alcohol with the Internet of Things.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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5 steps to Rapid Prototype Your Next Thing – #IoTFriday

Today, we want to share five steps that you should follow to rapid prototype your next thing connected to the Internet. Every time we start a project, we like to think about several things following the schema of the IoTFriday: the goal of the project, requirements, connectivity, data and interaction.

The following picture is the whiteboard in which Marc explains the five steps to follow before rapid prototyping any Internet of Thing.

5 steps to rapid prototype your next things

5 steps to rapid prototype your next things

We hope this is helpful to you and we will see you at next week’s #IoTFriday. Don’t forget to use  thethings.iO to rapid prototype and store data on our cloud in your next project!

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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How To Connect Things To The Internet – #iotFriday

Welcome to the first edition of thethings.iO #IoTFriday whiteboard video.

Today we want to talk to you about how to connect things to the Internet.

Transcription of the video

Hello thethings.iO friends! This is a new edition of the #IoTFriday!
Today i’m going to talk about how to connect things to the Internet with my new Koubachi, a sensor plant that help me to water my plants.

Internet of Things is today a trendy topic. Introduced at 1999 by Kevin Ashton englobes a bigger picture of how to connect anything to the Internet.

The tools that we have today enables anyone to connect cheap and easy to programme hardware inside everyday objects. This new connectivity allows designers, programmers and engineers build different uses for those objects for different industrial or consumer applications.

[…]

Below is the whiteboard in which Marc explained how to connect things to the Internet.

Whiteboard of how to connect things to the Internet #iotFriday

Whiteboard of how to connect things to the Internet #iotFriday

 

We hope you like it and see you at next week’s #IoTFriday. Be sure to use thethings.iO  to connect anything to the Internet.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

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What is thethings.iO?

Nowadays the Internet of Things is becoming the Internet of Walled Gardens. Most of the IoT projects are vertical solutions that cannot interoperate with other objects or projects. Kickstarter has accelerated this scenario, funding some awesome projects related with the Internet of Things and Quantified Self, nevertheless that has increased the silos existing in the current situation.

Technology experts and big companies do not have a clear idea about the real volume of the Internet of Things in the future, but they are confident that it will be big. That means that we will not be able to deal with one mobile application for each object connected to the Internet. All the things connected will have to have its own experience with the different vertical solutions.

thethings.iO is an horizontal solution built to create an interoperable Internet of Things scenario. Thethings.iO is a platform designed to extend the Web by providing access to real objects in the physical world. Our main goal is to let you manage, share and interact with any thing connected to the Internet anywhere, when you like.

Are you a manufacturer?

We want to make your products interoperable with other existing Internet-connected objects. We would like to offer the end-users the same experience interacting with all the objects and things that they own. And of course we want to give you an extra-value for sharing the access and information of your things. Contact us for more detailed information.

Are you a maker or a developer?

theThings.IO would allow you to create add value on the top of the Internet-connected objects compatible with our platform. I’m sure that you will be interested. theThings.IO is the hub in charge of handling all the communications and the requests to access and interact with them. Let us make the hard part!

theThings.IO for end users

Thethings.iO is built as a social network, seen as an interoperable platform that allows one to interact and  remotely manage their Internet-connected objects, such as Fitbit activity trackers, Withings scales or your Arduinos, among other within the same dashboard.

Learn how to connect Internet of Things and Quantified Self with thethings.iO, the new social network for your Internet-connected objects and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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