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How To Start With Internet of Things #IoTFriday

Welcome to the new edition of IoTFriday at thethings.iO. A lot of people have ask us how to get started with the Internet of Things. Today I would like to talk about what you can learn or do to get into the IoT. It depends on what you do, ideas you have and what you want to learn. Enjoy the new #IoTFriday video.

During this #IoTFriday, we proposed 3 different situations depending on if you are a designer, a programmer, or a business man with a lot of amazing ideas.

If you are a designer our suggestions are to design something useful that solves a problem in your daily life. After that, print your design with a 3D printer. Finally, learn how to code to continue working on your solution.

 

If you are a developer our first suggestion is first to buy electronics such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi or Intel Edison and begin the coding process. Learn how these IoT platforms work;  it’s quite simple and the most important part is to have fun programming things. Finally, developers always need to meet a designer.

If you are a business person, create a nice idea and think of the best way to scale it. If you have a business idea related with the Internet of Things that scales, meet with developers and designers to make it happen.

Feel free to write in the comment area below if you have any questions or comments! We will do our best to respond promptly. If you need to test our back-end solution, write us a message to thethings.iO.

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

Xmas lights at theThingsiO #iotFriday

At thethings.iO, we have been working a lot during the last months. We have been connecting things from our first customers and being in involved in awesome projects. We have also had some time to do some internal projects:

 

You are probably wondering, what did I just watch? Well, we were able to connect the Christmas lights and our Twitter handle (@theThingsIO), so that every time someone mentions us on Twitter they blink. We connected them via an Intel Edinson that listens to thethings.iO process.

Developing the Xmas lights connected to @thethingsIO

Developing the Xmas lights connected to @thethingsIO

We would like to use this opportunity to wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year for 2015

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Learn Arduino in 5 minutes #IoTFriday

Welcome to another video of IoTFriday here at thethings.iO. Today we plan to give you a quick overview about Arduino.

 

What is Arduino

Arduino was born in Italy in 2005 by a group from the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII) who wanted a board for its design students to use to build interactive projects during their thesis at the institute.

Arduino Uno - R3

Arduino Uno – R3

Arduino is open hardware and open source. The combination of both plus the simplicity of the product, created an entire ecosystem around Arduino with multiple shields, libraries and add-ons that everyone could build from their house or lab.

Arduino library at thethings.iO

At thethings.iO we published the Arduino library for thethings.iO and we made several examples about how to connect Arduino with thethings.iO using HTTP and MQTT. Some of these examples are built with Arduino Uno and Ethernet shield, WiFi shield (ESP8266, C3300 and Yun) and GPRS (Arduino GSM) in our github account.

Please send us any comments or feedback if you connect Arduino Uno or Arduino Yún at thethings.iO and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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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

Read more

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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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thethings.iO at the Mobile World Congress 2014

This was our first time at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. During the MWC in Barcelona our CEO, Marc Pous, visited several events where he was able to show our Internet of things platform which is up and running, ready to connect developers devices.

Marc pitching theThings.IO at the IoT Barcelona

Marc pitching theThings.IO at the IoT Barcelona

The first event at which Marc showcased thethings.iO was the Internet of Things Barcelona community  party on Sunday the 23rd of February at Pangea Coworking space. This was the first year the Internet of Things Barcelona group has a MWC event. During the event Marc showcased how to connect things from different brands under the same user experience as Intel and HWTreck.

On Monday we visited the Mobile World Congress exposition and we saw a lot of interesting new things. Featured products included the new connected car presented by Tesla Motors at the Telefonica booth and a new watch presented by Samsung.

On Tuesday Marc presented at the 4YFN conference about the future of the Internet of Things and the role of startups in the field. It was a fun session and we had an in depth discussion about the projects of Smart Citizen and Relayr. We also had the chance to speak with Massimo Banzi, one of the founders of Arduino.

Marc pitching theThings.IO at 4YFN

Marc pitching theThings.IO at 4YFN

On Tuesday Marc presented at the 4YFN conference about the future of the Internet of Things and the role of startups in the field. It was a fun session and we had an in depth discussion about the projects of Smart Citizen and Relayr. We also had the chance to speak with Massimo Banzi, one of the founders of Arduino.

Marc Pous and Massimo Banzi at the MWC

Marc Pous and Massimo Banzi at the MWC

On Wednesday, Marc was organizing one of the biggest events at the MWC called Wearable Wednesdays, which talked about wearables and the future of human computer interaction. Great speakers and panel discussions are planned with Sonny Vu (CEO at Misfit Wearables), Laurent Le Pen (CEO at Omate) or Christian Lindholm (CEO at Koru Labs) showing the quality of the event where a lot of new things will be showcased such as Bitcoin payment with Google Glass.

Here testing the Samsung band at the MWC

Here testing the Samsung band at the MWC

In general the Mobile World Congress was awesome for us as we gained the attention from new customers. The BETA is still underway to be launched for our registered members, so make sure to stay tuned and on the lookout .

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