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thethings.iO Top Picks from CES 2015

Every January, techies from around the world flock to Vegas for CES, the Consumer Electronic Show, to show off their latest innovations and catch a glimpse of the newest technology. CES 2015 was the largest in the event’s history, with more than 3,600 exhibitors– many of which were startups flaunting the latest IoT gadgets.

CES 2015

CES 2015

As we can see from CES 2015, the world of technology is constantly growing, and here at thethings.iO we know that it is becoming increasingly difficult for developers to keep up. We offer back-end support for your cloud solution, a customizable front-end user interface, analytical tools, interoperability, and guaranteed protection of the customer’s data, so developers can focus on what they do best: building cool things. Take a look at some of our favorite CES 2015 IoT launches, and learn about some of the things we would LOVE to connect to the Internet!

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Learn Intel Edison In 5 Minutes #IoTFriday

Welcome to the new edition of IoTFriday at theThings.IO. Today we want to show you how to start a project with the new platform made by Intel, the Intel Edison, in just 5 minutes.

A new DIY platform of Internet of Things is on the block! After being announced at the last CES 2013 with a lot of high expectations, Intel Edison has finally arrived! We are happy to say that the final result lived up to these expectations. With the Intel Edison, Intel is pushing their new processor, Intel Atom, to focus on the Internet of Things with a very small energy consumption.

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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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Top 3 DIY Platforms #IoTFriday

Welcome to the newest edition of the IoTFriday at thethings.iO. Today we will be speaking to you about our favorite DIY platform to develop Internet of Things projects. It typically isn’t the hardware you need but actually the needs of the project that is the deciding factor in which platform to choose.

We have selected Arduino, Electric Imp and Intel Edison as some of our 3 favorite do-it-yourself electronic platforms.

 

Top 3 DIY platforms - #IoTFriday

Top 3 DIY platforms – #IoTFriday

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Thethings.iO At The Internet of Things World Event at Palo Alto

Last June, thethings.IO founder and CEO, Marc Pous, got the opportunity to speak at the Internet of Things World Event at Palo Alto.

IoT World Event Palo Alto 2014

IoT World Event Palo Alto 2014

The session was titled “Designing for User Experience in the Internet of Things.” Marc answered questions related to how the consumer will manage multiple devices, platforms, and services in a home. There are two key issues for consumers: identity management and UI design. Other session speakers were Mike Kuniavsky, from the Palo Alto Research Center, Rob Lawrence, UI Director from Native, and Phil Fearnly, General Mananger of BBC Future Media.

The next day, Marc visited the former Xerox Parc, now called the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) by Mike Kuniavsky. Mik showed some intriguing projects that were being made at the PARC such as a printer that is able to print off mobile devices, from displays to microcontrollers, and also another print that is able to print batteries. At PARC, there is a tiny museum to see all the amazing projects that have been developed there.

Xerox PARC

Xerox PARC

Ubiquitous Computing project leaded by Mark Weiser at Xerox PARC

Ubiquitous Computing project leaded by Mark Weiser at Xerox PARC

Marc also presented thethings.iO at the IoT San Francisco meetup. Here, there were almost one hundred IoT enthusiastic people. It was only a forty minute talk but lasted longer than that with twenty minutes worth of questions.

Marc speaking at the IoT SFO

Marc speaking at the IoT SFO

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

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One App For Each Gadget? No Way! This Is Not The Internet of Things We Want

When we envision the future of the Internet of Things, we see this scenario that Apple and Google helped to build with their mobile devices and their application market. We see tons of gadgets and objects connected to the Internet each one (or even brand) managed through their mobile application.

Dozens of IoT mobile apps (Photo by: Gonzalo Baeza)

Dozens of IoT mobile apps (Photo by: Gonzalo Baeza)

Philips Hue and LIFX are both household light bulbs and both are compatible with the analogical light bulbs that we have at home. However, both require the user to download separate apps to control their own device, this doesn’t make any sense.

Philips HUE and LIFX

Philips HUE and LIFX

People love to monitor their health by using scales but now with the invention of wearable trackers such as Fitbit or Nike+ people are able to also monitor their physical activity throughout the day. There are scales such as the Withings scale but this is not compatable with the Fitbit or the Nike+. We feel as if technology should make watching our health more convenient, not more difficult.

Our solution

We believe that the users of these millions of gadgets do not want to use dozens of mobile apps to interact with their devices. We propose a central place where they are able to aggregate, manage and interact in real-time with all of the devices.

We want to provide a platform where all of the Internet of Things in our market are interoperable and end users do not need to deal with different mobile apps.

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

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Welcome to the Programmable World

The June 2012 Wired magazine (US edition) has an awesome article that talks about the Internet of Things and the future. Called In the Programmable World, All our objects will act as one his author (Bill Wasik) perfectly explains by hand of the CEO of SmarterThing the present and future of the Internet of Things.

Awake and welcome to the Programmable World @ Wired US June 2013

Awake and welcome to the Programmable World @ Wired US June 2013

The author explains clearly the next three steps of the Internet of Things:

For the Programmable World to reach its full potential, we need to pass through three stages. The first is simply the act of getting more devices onto the network—more sensors, more processors in everyday objects, more wireless hookups to extract data from the processors that already exist. The second is to make those devices rely on one another, coordinating their actions to carry out simple tasks without any human intervention. The third and final stage, once connected things become ubiquitous, is to understand them as a system to be programmed, a bona fide platform that can run software in much the same manner that a computer or smartphone can. Once we get there, that system will transform the world of everyday objects into a design­able environment, a playground for coders and engineers.

At theThings.IO we fully agree with this evolution of the Internet of Things, with some comments.

For the first step more evangelizers are needed. From my point of view, most of the manufacturers and OEMs are still dubitative about the Internet of Things. The history says that people is not really interested on objects with embedded gadgets, such as the “smart” fridge, the “smart” coffee machine, et al. We must move from the gadget connected to the Internet to the object with a real value. That said, the openness of these objects is needed.

For the second stage, I could say that years of research have been granted innovating on this topic. Brokers, hubs, ESBs, lightweight M2M protocols among other technical names have been developed in order to make the interoperability a reality. As Bill Wasik pointed, Smart Things is doing an amazing work on that field with their hardware. Ninja Blocks is also working on this direction.

The final stage is the most interesting. We are focused on developing to make real this third stage. We truly believe that developers might be able to apply their innovation and creativity on the top of the Internet connected objects. Manufacturers will be empowered with objects with new functionalities. And finally end-users with objects that can be reprogrammed for free or just for few cents.

We love this idea of hacking objects… why a glass cannot be a flowerpot?

Scott Jenson talking about Bears, Bats, and Bees. Does the Internet of Things Needs Our Social Network?

Since the Scott’s SXSW presentation, we have been trying to reach the Scott Jenson video of his presentation’s slides and finally we were able to get ahold of it.

In the video, Scott exposes the new technology trends and how the Internet of Things will mutate the current technology by using great facts and examples.

The aim of thethings.iO is to offer developers and makers of devices a platform able to reprogram devices, offer new functionalities on top of existing devices and create add-value to real services. Our point of view is that the Web will lead this change. The users will receive benefits from these new programs since things will be inter-connected and accessible through one sole device. We work with a passion to give each user a meaningful product where they will be able to manage and interact with everything they have connected via the Internet.

We truly believe that the Internet of Things will revolutionize the technology market, and we hope that our social network will be part of this change!

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