Traveling made easy with IoT

Traveling Made Easy with IoT

Traveling can either be a terrible or an amazing experience. While some things like a turbulent flight or first class can’t be fixed by IoT, IoT can help make other parts of traveling so much simpler. Whether you’re a regular traveler racking up miles or only traveling for a family wedding every now and then, IoT can offer you ease of mind while traveling.

All jet-setters have experienced that sick feeling in their stomach when they stand at the luggage pickup for what seems like an eternity with no sign of their luggage. After realizing their luggage most likely won’t be coming, they can’t help but wonder where in the world it has traveled to. However, there is a way to make this dilemma go a bit more smoothly with a thing called Trakdot.

Trakdot is an IoT product that allows you to track your luggage from the convenience of your handheld after placing the Trakdot device inside your checked bag(s). Trakdot employs newly patented micro-electronics and ground-base cellular telephone technologies to track and report.

Trakdot

When in luggage and in an airplane cargo hold, Trakdot’s patented technology shuts off its transmit-and-receive capability, and enters “airplane mode.” Once back on the ground, the same technology “awakens” Trakdot and employs the local cellular network to notify the Trakdot owner.

Trakdot has gotten exceptional reviews that highlight the convenience and punctuality of the product. One satisfied customer stated, “Received emails and SMS on my phone within 10 minutes of landing. By the time I am on the gate I know where my bag is. And still after 28 hours of continuous usage battery level was still good” and another said, “Great product and app, I use my Trakdot every time I fly. Knowing my suitcase is in the same country as I am gives me a lot of comfort.” Another customer whose luggage never left the original airport of departure commented, “I received notification from the Trakdot inside the missing bag a few moments before the clerk called to tell me the bag had arrived and that it was being delivered to my hotel. Thanks Trakdot!”

Trakdot is perfect for individuals who travel constantly for work or simply travel for pleasure. This will make all trips a bit easier and less stressful by keeping you up to date on your luggage location. Trakdot can help you have peace of mind while you fly.

If you’re looking for the full IoT package when it comes to luggage, Blue Smart is the IoT product for you. Blue smart is a much needed update in the luggage industry that has a laundry list of attributes from digital locks to proximity sensors. The digital lock allows you to lock the suitcase from an app on your phone, and in conjunction with the proximity sensors the suitcase will automatically lock if the distance between yourself and the suitcase is too large. After automatically locking you will get a notification on the app alerting you that you may have left your luggage behind somewhere. Since, the suitcase also comes with location tracking you can easily find your luggage if you left it over by the Starbucks line or when you’re waiting at baggage claim.

Bluesmart

Blue Smart’s design is also travel-friendly. The suitcase allows for easy access to a pocket to store all of your electronics. No more holding up the line at security trying to unzip and pull out your electronics for the X-ray machine! Once you get through security you can feel free to use as many devices for as long as you want, because the suitcase also comes equipped with a built-in battery charging space that can charge your iPhone to 100% six times! This will definitely come in handy if you have long layovers, and don’t want to fight people for outlets.

Blue Smart also makes traveling easier before you even get to the airport. The suitcase comes equipped with a digital scale. All one has to do is lift the suitcase with the top handle and the weight of the suitcase is sent to the app. Now you never have to worry about overpacking if you plan on checking your suitcase. Additionally, the suitcase and apps can sync to other travel apps and give suggestions on how and what to pack. Basically, it’s one of the coolest suitcases out there and a personal travel assistant all rolled into one.

Smart luggage is gaining popularity, and therefore consumers like us have more options for smart luggage! Another option when it comes to smart luggage is the Trunkster. Like the Blue Smart it has a built-in scale, location tracking, and USB charging. One thing that makes Trunkster different from Blue Smart is that the suitcase has zipperless entry. The suitcase has sliding roll top door that allows for better protection against theft and more durable than zippers. The Trunkster comes in a carry-on and checked bag size.

Trunkster

IoT is making traveling a lot less worrisome. Now we can just make sure we get to our plane on time. As IoT develops, traveling will only get more and more stress free for jet-setters and first time flyers alike. Here at Things.IO we can help travelers by helping you. We are a Cloud solution for companies that want to build cool new things and connect them to the internet. If you have a product that could improve traveling or other sectors by connecting it to the internet, make an account here or contact us here.

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How IoT will change Sleep

My life, just like everyone else’s revolves around sleep. If I get a good night’s sleep I’m up and ready for the day. If I get a bad night’s sleep I’m tired and grumpy until I get some coffee. The hardest thing about getting a good night sleep is figuring out what is wrong with your current sleep situation. But lucky for us IoT is here to do the work for us, and tell us how to get better sleep!

Smart Beds

If you’re looking for a new bed you should check out Sleep Number’s x12 bed. It comes equipped with what they call SleepIQ. The bed monitors your sleeping habits, movement, heart rate, and breathing rate while you’re sleeping. The bed sends the data to an app on your phone and it then suggests how you can adjust the bed for better sleep. The app also gives diet and exercise suggestions for better sleep.

Imagine headed home from a long day and counting the seconds until you can sleep, and then coming home to a bed that’s too hot, or too cold, to fall asleep in. IoT is here to save the day, again! Luna is a mattress cover that learns your sleep habits and uses that knowledge to know the times you are likely to go to bed, and makes the bed a comfortable temperature for for sleep. Luna continues to adjust the temperature throughout the night to keep you comfortable. Not only does Luna adjust the temperature in your bed for comfortable sleep, Luna also monitors and analyzes your sleep cycles, heart rate, and breathing rate to give you information on the quality and quantity of your sleep on their app the next morning.

On top of all of this Luna can connect to other smart devices in your home. Sending signals to other devices to lock doors, to turn off lights, or even to turn on the coffee machine once it sense that you’re awake.

Smart beds will change the way we understand our sleep, and possibly our sleep routine. If you don’t want to part from your current bed, but want to join the future and IoT, don’t worry IoT comes both big and small!

Wearables

The list of wearables is endless in the IoT world. But when it comes to monitoring your sleeping habits and giving suggestions for better sleep some wearables are better than others. The most popular wearables that track your sleep patterns are the Jawbone UP series, MisFits, Fitbits, Withings Pulse O2s, Nike + Fuelband, Microsoft Bands, and My Basis Peaks. Each wearable comes with its own pros and cons that are worth looking into, but all of them do the basic tasks of monitoring your sleep.

All of the bands have the are able to track your heart rate, monitor your sleep cycles, and present all the information on an app or website. The Jawbone UP series provides in depth suggestions and tips for better sleep, whereas My Basis Peak also measures movement in your sleep, and provides a sleep score to better conceptualize your quality of sleep.

My Basis Peak

Apps

IoT gives you the ability to download apps that monitor your sleep and give suggestions for improvement!

SleepBot and Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock are two apps that turn your phone into a motion sensor that can track your movements while you sleep. You turn on the app before going to sleep and place your phone next to your pillow or close to your body on your bed. When you wake up it has a report on your sleep.

In addition to giving you a brief report of your sleep both apps also double as alarm clocks. The app will slowly wake you up within a 15-90 minute window of your choosing. The idea is that the app will wake up at the time in the window provided when you are the ‘most’ awake. For instance, the app will try and wait until you are out of deep sleep to wake you if the window you provide is long enough.

Sleep Cycle iPhone

Devices

Beds, apps, wearables could there be more?!? Of course! There is always more in the world of IoT! In addition to everything previously mentioned there are also devices that sit under or on our beds that monitor and track your body while you’re sleeping.

Beddit is a device that attaches to your bed and measures the quality and quantity of your sleep, has a smart alarm similar to that of the apps previously mentioned, and gives daily tips. All this information goes to the app on your phone.

For those of you who burn the midnight oil might be interested in Chrona! The device is a insert that goes into your pillowcase, and monitors your sleep, deep sleep cycles, movement, and can wake you up in the same manner as Beddit and the apps. While it has the same functions as Beddit and the other IoT devices mentioned in this post it also has the added bonus of what the company calls a ‘deep sleep boost.’ The pillow insert promotes deep sleep by using low-frequency sounds to help have a deeper sleep.

Chrona Sleep

If you’re really interested in understanding how your bedroom conditions affects your sleep Sense is the sleep monitoring device for you! Sense comes in two parts. One part is the ‘pill’ that attached to your pillow and monitors your movements and sleep cycles, and has an alarm that wake you up at the right time according to your sleep cycle. The second part is an ‘orb’ that sits on your nightstand and can determine if your room is too bright, too loud, too cold, etc to help you understand why you woke up at 3am or why you couldn’t go to sleep.

Just like the other devices, Sense sends the information to an app on your phone and you can visually see your sleep cycles from when you fell asleep to when you woke up. The app also gives suggestions on how to change your bedroom conditions for better sleep.

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=80&v=6aR2Qzgtvq4

Connecting your home to your sleep patterns!

Have you ever gone to sleep with the TV and air condition on and woken up to late night infomercials in a freezing house? Don’t worry IoT has solution for that too!

Samsung’s SleepSense is a device that goes under your bed that monitors and tracks your sleep cycle like everything in this blog post, but has the added effect of turning off your smart TV if it senses that you’ve fallen asleep. Now you’ll never have to wake up to Netflix 4 episodes ahead of you! In addition to being able to be synced with your smart TV it can also be synced with your air conditioning, smart refrigerator, or any other smart appliances you may have in your home!

SleepSense transmits its data to your phone for you to view your sleep score the next day. Not only does it give you suggestions for when or how to sleep for a better sleep it can also give suggestions based on the other smart devices it is connected to. For instance if you have a smart refrigerator it can track what foods you may have eaten that led to a bad sleep. Imagine knowing exactly what it was that caused your restlessness!

Here at thethings.iO we connect devices or wearables. We are a Cloud solution for companies that decide to build new cool things that can be connected to improve our lives. If you want to know more about us, you can create an account by clicking here, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or follow us on Twitter! Stay tuned and be the first in knowing the latest news of the IoT world and thethings.iO.

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Analytics for Sigfox: meet thethings.iO

Analytics for Sigfox with thethings.iO

Analytics for Sigfox with thethings.iO

If you are an Internet of Things enthusiast, you must know Sigfox. In case you don’t, keep reading. Nevertheless, this post is not only about the incredible things you can make with Sigfox but also how you can integrate it with an IoT platform such as thethings.iO.

What’s Sigfox?

Sigfox is a cellular style telecom that enables remote devices to connect using UNB (ultra-narrow band) technology. It appeared trying to solve the network problems that Wi-Fi range may cause (for example, it is short and 3G and 4G are expensive and use too much power while working) to make the Internet of Things easier.

Using Sigfox, you can transfer small amounts of data (each message can be up to 12 bytes of payload data). Any user can send between 0 and 140 messages per day, and if they want a 24 hours distribution, they can also send a maximum of one message every 11 minutes. This means that each message you send doesn’t contain much information.

Do you want to know how to connect a thing with thethings.iO and Sigfox? Then, watch this tutorial:

When Sigfox meets thethings.iO

As you have just seen, Sigfox is perfect for very low power operations. Messages transmitted must be small, which can be seen as a problem. Any user can downlink 4 messages of 8 bytes to the device, and the uplink is up to 140 messages of 12 bytes. Depending on the use case, this is just enough information to be transmitted.

Sigfox doesn’t understand or transform your payload, so you can read the message as is, allowing developers to parse the structured payload and play with bits and bytes. That means, that you cannot see any data or analytics using just Sigfox, and at the moment neither any business logic on the top of it.

With all these limitations, we have integrated Sigfox with thethings.iO, in order to pick up all the data generated and offer it to its users. Actually, it is more than that. Paying the price of a Sigfox device plus 1€ per year to thethings.iO you can get a full customizable analytics, cloud code with triggers and crons and real-time interaction from your Sigfox-connected devices.

In less than 5 minutes you can see your things’ data at thethings.iO panel. Awesome, right?

thethings.iO and Sigfox

thethings.iO and Sigfox

As we have said, with Sigfox you only get Payload data (using binary language). To make it clever, using thethings.iO, data is translated to our JSON diagram, so you can know the exact temperature or humidity (or whatever) value of your device at any time in your Sigfox dashboard with thethings.iO.

thethingsio.dash

You can find libraries for a couple of prototyping shields with Sigfox Antennas at our github account as Sigfox SDK for thethings.iO.

What we do at thethings.iO

At thethings.iO we connect devices or wearables to the Internet. We are a Cloud solution for companies that decide to build new cool things that can be connected to improve our lives. If you want to know more about us, you can create an account by clicking here, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or follow us on Twitter! Stay tuned and be the first in knowing the latest news of the IoT world and thethings.iO.

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Connect esp8266 to the Internet at thethings.iO

The ESP8266 is a little board that can be used as an Arduino WiFi module using serial communication and AT commands. But since it features a processor, memory, GPIOs and much more, there are more interesting uses to it than a simple shield to connect your Arduino to the Internet. It can be used as a simple and minimal Arduino with integrated WiFi. And, of course, you can connect store data and interact with ESP8266 with thethings.iO

There are multiple versions of this simple board. In this post we’ll be using the ESP-01. This version has only two GPIOs which makes it perfect to connect simple things such a button or a lamp to the internet.

esp-01

Flashing the ESP8266

In order to flash the board with any of the mentioned firmwares, it must be powered on with GPIO0 set to LOW. Since this is something that is done so frequently (specially when debugging), an easy and convenient way to do it is to build a board with switches in it to ease the boot/reset process. It can even be designed to have all the needed GPIOs connected to female pins so we can prototype without having to attach/detach the board constantly.

Since there are so many versions of this chip, you’ll have to adapt this board to whichever model you are using.

As can be seen in the schematic, S1 is wired to GPIO0 and GND, S2 is wired to RST and GND. So, pressing S2 will reset the board while pressing both and releasing S2 first will put the chip in flash mode and allow us to program it via the FTDI232.

Programmer schematic
Programmer picture

Firmwares for ESP8266

AT

AT Firmware

The module usually ships with this firmware by default. It features a simple command prompt that allows you to connect the device to the internet with some simple commands (called AT Commands). Inside the zip file provided in the link above there is a reference manual that shows how simple is to communicate with the board.

This firmware is useful to use the board as a cheap Arduino WiFi shield since using it with the RX/TX pins or a SoftwareSerial instance is really simple. Just send the same commands that you would write by hand on the serial monitor through the SoftwareSerial and you’re ready to go. There are a couple examples in our repository that can help you get started with that.

Example

Using any serial comm program you can communicate with the board and check its version, connect to a WiFi spot…

> AT+RST
OK
> AT+GMR
AT version:0.21.0.0
SDK version:0.9.5
OK
> AT+CWMODE=1
OK
> AT+CWJAP="YOUR SSID","YOUR SSID PASSWORD"
OK

NodeMCU

The easiest way to put custom programs in the chip is to flash it with this firmware and run lua scripts in it. This method is ideal to prototype IoT products fast and simple. Once you have flashed the firmware, you can access the lua command prompt with the serial programmer or upload your scripts with the luatool.

An easy way to get a custom build of this firmware with the modules you need is the online NodeMCU custom builds.

The following example uses MQTT to send a signal to the thethings.iO platform each time a button is pushed.

Button example

function init()
    -- Change these variables to suit your needs
    token = "YOUR THING TOKEN"
    ssid = "SSID"
    password = "SSID PASSWORD"

    server = "mqtt.thethings.io"
    button_pin = 4
    pushed = false

    gpio.mode(button_pin, gpio.INT)
    gpio.trig(button_pin, "low", checkButton)
end

-- Set the esp8266 as station an connect to desired WiFi
function connect(ssid, password)
    wifi.setmode(wifi.STATION)
    wifi.sta.config(ssid, password)
    wifi.sta.connect()
    tmr.alarm(0, 10000, 0, checkConnection)
end

-- Check the connection status, connect if disconnected and create the mqtt
-- client when connected
function checkConnection()
    if not wifi.sta.status() == 5 then
        print("Connecting...")
        connect(ssid, password)
    else
        print("Connected!")
        createMQTTClient()
    end
end

function createMQTTClient()
    m = mqtt.Client("esp8266Client", 120, "", "")

    m:on("offline", function(client)
        print("MQTT offline, reconnecting...")
        checkConnection()
    end)

    m:connect(server, 1883, 0, function(conn)
        print("MQTT connected")
    end)
end

function sendPushed()
    if not wifi.sta.status() == 5 then
        checkConnection()
        return
    end
    m:publish("v2/things/"..token, "{\"values\":[{\"key\":\"button\",\"value\":1}]}", 0, 0, function(client) print("sent") end)
end

function checkButton(level)
    if level == 0 and not pushed then
        print("PUSHED")
        pushed = true
        sendPushed()
    else
        if level == 1 and pushed then
            pushed = false
        end
    end
end

init()
checkConnection()

You can see the full source and other examples here

Arduino code for ESP8266

An easy to setup method that uses the same environment and libraries as Arduino. You can use our Arduino libraries (using the WiFi class) to easily connect it to the thethings.iO platform.

#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>

#define TOKEN "YOUR THING TOKEN"

#define SSID      "YOUR SSID"
#define PASS_SSID "YOUR SSID PASSWORD"

WiFiClient client;

void setup() {
    Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop() {
    checkConnection();
    String string;
    while (client.available()) {
        string.concat((char)client.read());
    }
    string.toUpperCase();
    string.replace(" ", "");
    if (string.indexOf("\"VALUE\":1") > 0) {
        Serial.println("ON");
    }
    else if (string.indexOf("\"VALUE\":0") > 0) {
        Serial.println("OFF");
    }
}

void checkConnection() {
    if (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
        WiFi.begin(SSID, PASS_SSID);
        while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
            Serial.print(".");
            delay(1000);
        }
    }
    if (!client.connected()) {
        if (client.connect("api.devices.thethings.io", 80)) {
            client.println("GET /v2/things/" + String(TOKEN) + " HTTP/1.1");
            client.println("Host: api.devices.thethings.io");
            client.println("Accept: application/json");
            client.println();
        }
    }
}

Graph

C language for ESP8266

You can write your own firmwares using the Espressif SDK. This is a more interesting usage for this board since it allows you to create custom programs that can read/write from the GPIOs, manage memory, use PWM, UART…

The easiest way to get started with this is to install the SDK from the esp-open-sdk project. After cloning and building it you’ll be able to use the xtensa-lx106 compiler to build your own applications. We’ve built a simple library that allows easy connection with thethings.iO

This function checks periodically if an IP is assigned until it is.

void ICACHE_FLASH_ATTR network_check_ip(void) {
    struct ip_info ipconfig;
    os_timer_disarm(&network_timer);
    wifi_get_ip_info(STATION_IF, &ipconfig);
    if (wifi_station_get_connect_status() == STATION_GOT_IP && ipconfig.ip.addr != 0) {
        os_printf("IP found\n");
        thethingsio_activate(ACTIVATION_CODE, get_token);
    } else {
        os_printf("No IP found\n");
        os_timer_disarm(&network_timer);
        os_timer_setfn(&network_timer, (os_timer_func_t *)network_check_ip, NULL);
        os_timer_arm(&network_timer, 1000, 0);
    }
}

This is the starting function for the user program (like setup() for Arduino)

void ICACHE_FLASH_ATTR user_init() {
    // Set AP settings
    char ssid[32] = SSID;
    char password[64] = SSID_PASSWORD;
    struct station_config config;
    os_memcpy(&config.ssid, ssid, 32);
    os_memcpy(&config.password, password, 64);

    // Configure wifi
    wifi_set_opmode(0x1);
    wifi_station_set_config(&config);

    network_init();
}

You can see the full source here

Links

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How IoT will change Schools

Just as the IoT is shaping the future of homes, sports, and music, IoT is going to literally shape the future it self! (…Because the children are the future…Queue the 1985 song ‘We are the World’) Schools will be managed in a whole new way.

IoT is making a big impact on managing the school building itself. Using Cisco’s Physical Access Gateway schools are now able to remotely control the opening/closing/unlocking/locking of thousands of doors of the school buildings. This makes managing who can get in the building much simpler for school officials.

gateway_largephoto_600x480

Five schools in Toledo, Ohio, USA are saving $128,000 USD annually after connecting their schools to the internet! According to the district “the control systems in the buildings [are] integrated into one web-based system to allow the district to monitor and analyze the facilities energy usage.” The school was able to take that information and make adjustments to the energy usage to save money! The savings are allowing them to keep programs around despite budget cuts. In a way, the Internet of Things is saving schools!

On top of ‘saving’ schools, the Internet of Things can help teachers take attendance and help students with learning disabilities. The Nymi band is a wearable “smart band” that uses HeartID technology to authenticate who the wearer is. Attendance could be taken as students walk into the class while wearing the Nymi band. The band would send a signal to the computer telling it who the student is, and the computer would mark the student as present.

Nymi Band

Students with ADHD normally work with a para-educator once or twice a week to work on their focus one student at a time. But with Cortechs new technologies, students can work on their focus at anytime. Cortechs has developed a brainwave-sensing headset that connects via bluetooth to a mobile game that helps children with ADHD learn to focus. The game measures, monitors, and responds to the attention and relaxation levels of the player’s brainwaves. So, instead of being limited to helping one child at a time, hundreds of children with ADHD can be helped at once.

cortechs.ie

Not only can IoT make learning more efficient, it can also literally be used as a learning tool in the classroom. The Internet of School Things is working with 8 schools in the UK to incorporate IoT into their learning. Schools can purchase a weather kit, soil kit, and/or a robotug kit. The weather kit allows students to see current data on weather and compare it to historic trends. The robotug kit encourages students to build robots and then test which robot pulled the hardest. The coolest one by far is the soil kit! It lets the students build a sensor that can measure the light, temperature, and soil moisture. The kit presents the data to the students and the students can use it to explore when, why, and how plants grow the best.

soil-kit

Those are all just a few examples of what the IoT can currently do to help improve schools! There are so many more possibilities that it would be better suited for a book than a blog post! There will be even more to come in the future as programs at University of Wisconsin at Madison (UW Madison) and DISTANCE, the UK education consortium that funds The Internet of School Things, research further ways that IoT can help improve schools.

At UW Madison, the school has opened an IoT lab where students can explore, research, and develop new products and applications for the IoT. When students are learning about IoT and have access to hands on experimentation, new and exciting developments are sure to follow. Overall, not only is IoT saving schools, helping students, and taking attendance; IoT is opening new fields of study in universities.

Here at Things.IO, we can help schools by helping you. We are a Cloud solution for companies that want to build cool new things and connect it to the internet. If you have a product that by connecting it to the internet it could improve schools or other sectors make an account here or contact us here.

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thethings.iO at October 2015

October means lots of things: it represents the definitive goodbye to the summer, the celebration of the Oktoberfest in Munich, or the arrival of a new season in the technological field. More events, more posts, more work… more thethings.iO!

So what’s this October bringing to us?

First of all, we want to express our sadness about the cancellation of the Solidcon Europe, organized by O’Reilly, which was expected to take place in Amsterdam on October 28th, and of which we were sponsors.

Hackathon 'Todos Incluidos'

Hackathon ‘Todos Incluidos’

But October is a long month, so we have other events to attend!
The first one is this weekend (Oct. 3-4th) and takes place in Granada. Fundación Telefónica and Telefonica I+D organizes the Hackathon ‘Todos Incluidos’ in collaboration with Girls in Tech. The event starts this weekend, but there’ll be two more collaborative meetings during this month. The second one will be in Barcelona (Oct. 17-18th), and the last one in Madrid (Oct. 24-25th).
The Hackaton is organized in order to promote the teamwork, as well as the gender diversity in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) environments, where women are the minority. That’s why the event will be formed 50% men and 50% women.

Next October 6th, our CEO Marc Pous is attending the Blockchain Week in Barcelona. Marc Pous will moderate the “Panel: is blockchain the key to the Internet of Things?”, at 12pm. Pous will share scenario with Sandra Fernández (Telefónica), Anthony o’Dowd (IBM), Niko Punin (Bitfury) and Meinhard Benn (Satoshipay).

Marc Pous will also attend the IoT Shifts Conference as a speaker. The event will take place in Barcelona the next Oct. 19-20th. The conference will include sessions on Retail, Health & Fitness, Gaming, Smart Home, Energy, Smart City, etc. With a lot of international speakers, the event is such a great opportunity for corporations, SMBs and startups and entrepreneurs.

Finally, the Creator Space BCN Creatathon organized by BASF and Imagine Creative Center will take place in the Disseny Hub Barcelona the next Oct. 28th. Teams, formed by 3 people, will work for 24h to generate original solutions to solve problems that affect to our environment. There, thethings.iO’s CEO Marc Pous will teach a magistral class about Internet of Things.

Introducing you to thethings.iO

We are an IoT cloud platform for companies that decide to build new cool things that can be connected to improve our lives. If you want to know more about us, you can create an account by clicking here, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or follow us on Twitter! Stay tuned and be the first in knowing the latest news of the IoT world and thethings.iO.

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thethings.iO in ‘El Mundo’

thethings.iO team

thethings.iO team

Last 25th of September, we appeared at the Spanish Newspaper ‘El Mundo’. They explained what we do at thethings.iO as well as introduced the concept ‘Internet of Things’. The article says…

Coming from the old concept of domotics, popped up the Internet of Things. The old domotics showed up a problem: with the system used, all the devices needed to be from the same maker or compatible brands. If not, the system didn’t work anymore. The Internet of Things as a business came to solve that problem. A new model not tight to old proprietary protocols and brands and based on the top of new communication protocols such as WiFi, Bluetooth, Sigfox or LoRa. And this is why thethings.iO appeared into the IoT platform scenario, we are helping companies making networked hardware, connected and compatible with other devices.

thethings.iO makes posible to connect things to the Internet and then to the cloud, using different protocols, according to the use you are going to give to each device. Also, thethings.iO was defined as the Amazon Web Services for the IoT companies.

“To put on sale a product is so expensive and it takes a lot of time. We allow companies to focus on their best (the design and building the products), while we do the software in order to do everything in a shorter time”, explains Marc Pous.

Actually, the team that started the acceleration in Wayra Telefónica (Barcelona) changed their business strategy. Pous explained that they started with the idea of create a mobile app to manage multiple devices, but the huge demand of what there was under it (the software) made them do what they are doing right now.

The Internet of Things enable companies to understand the way users and consumers use their devices: who uses them once, and who uses it everyday.

In some past projects, Marc Pous connected a sofa that vibrates with the music rhythm in the context of the Sónar+D, and during the Oktoberfest he connected a beer mass. “In that moment, there wasn’t any place where you could save and display the data in real-time and that was what I wanted”, adds thethings.iO CEO.

Right now, thethings.iO is working with big enterprises and startups developing different Internet-connected devices, such as medical devices, printers or lights.

Marc Pous ensures that thethings.iO‘s differentiation as a startup is to help their clients make their product be build as fast as possible, in a simple way, giving just the most important information from the data acquired and, finally, the interoperability.

To read the full article in Spanish click here.

Introducing you thethings.iO

At thethings.iO we connect devices or wearables. We are a Cloud solution for companies that decide to build new cool things that can be connected to improve our lives. If you want to know more about us, you can create an account by clicking here, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or follow us on Twitter! Stay tuned and be the first in knowing the latest news of the IoT world and thethings.iO.

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thethings.iO at the IOTSWC15

IOTSWC15 Barcelona

IOTSWC15 Barcelona

Last week, it took place for the first time in Barcelona, the IOT Solutions World Congress Barcelona 2015, and thethings.iO team was there! This event, held at Fira de Barcelona on September 16th, 17th and 18th, hopes to become an annual Internet of Things’ date.

There, we shared space with some of the most important technological companies from around the world, such as IBM, Vodafone and Intel, among others. With the support of Wayra and Telefónica Open Future, and thanks to Barcelona Activa, who gave us a great space, thethings.iO could attend this important event.

After the cancellation of two of the biggest IoT events in Europe (planned in Amsterdam and London for this autumn season), Barcelona is considered, yet again, to be a main technological city.

So, save the date for the next year! We want to see you at the next edition of the IOTSWC15!

What we do at thethings.iO

We are a Cloud solution for companies that decide to build new cool things that can be connected to improve our lives. If you want to know more about us, you can create an account by clicking here, sign up to receive our monthly newsletter or follow us on Twitter! Stay tuned and be the first in knowing the latest news of the IoT world and thethings.iO.

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