Posts

How to learn CoAP in 5 minutes #IoTFriday

Welcome to the new edition of  IoTFriday at thethings.iO. Some customers and personal friends have asked us here at thethings.iO what is the best Internet of Things communication protocol? The answer is complex, because in reality it truly depends on the uses and needs of the developer. Today I would like to take five minutes and explain how to learn CoAP to everyone out there.

In the video I will explain to the listeners what CoAP is and why someone should use CoAP in their particular hardware.

What is CoAP

CoAP is defined as Contrained Application Protocol, and is a protocol intended to be used in very simple hardware. CoAp enables devices to communicate over the Internet. The protocol is especially targeted for constrained hardware such as 8-bits microcontrollers, low power sensors and similar devices that can’t run on HTTP or TLS. CoAP is a simplification of the HTTP protocol running on UDP, that helps save bandwidth.

The Internet Engineering Task Force Constrained RESTful environments (IETF CoRE) Working Group has done the major standardization work for CoAP. The core of the protocol is specified in RFC 7252, which means that CoAP is still not a standard protocol.

Two new features designed specifically for Internet of Things and M2M are:

  • Observe at new events happened on sensors or actuators.
  • Device management and discoverability from external devices.

 

When to use CoAP

Some of the specific cases in which CoAP are useful are:

  • Your hardware cannot run HTTP or TLS: If this is the case then running CoAP and DTLS can practically do the same as HTTP. If one is an expert on HTTP APIs, then the migration will be simple. You receive GET for reading and POST, PUT and DELETE for mutations and the security runs on DTLS.
  • Your hardware uses battery: If this is ones problem then running CoAP will improve the battery performance when compared with HTTP over TCP/IP. UDP saves some bandwidth and makes the protocol more efficient.
  • A subscription is necessary: If one cannot run MQTT and HTTP polling is impossible then CoAP is a solution

 

At thethings.iO we provide a CoAP library to connect your hardware at our IoT cloud solution. Make sure to contact us to try thethings.iO CoAP protocol.

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

/3 Comments/by

The Internet Will Disappear Soon

Last week, executive chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, was asked about the future of the Web; to which he commented “The Internet will disappear.” He was talking about the Internet of Things of course. When Mark Weiser explained what the Ubiquitous Computing, clearly he was talking about the same, 20 years ago.

Ubiquitous Computing (1991)

Ubiquitous Computing (1991)

If you look around, you can see how obvious it is that the world around us is progressing rapidly. Times are changing faster than it ever has before, and the future of technology is in our hands—literally. Think of all of the times you asked yourself,

“Wouldn’t it be cool if _______________ was real?”

Chances are, someone has figured out how to make it real; and it’s really quite incredible what Internet of Things companies are beginning to develop: anything and everything from the Apple Watch, to smart dog tags to track your pup’s whereabouts. So now that we have all this technology at our fingertips, what’s next? What does the future of technology look like?

The answer lies somewhere in the cloud of the Internet of Things, a mechanism for connecting and controlling high-tech gadgets and everyday items via the internet. Here at thethings.iO we are proud to officially launch our very own IoT cloud solution, proving a totally unique connection between your things and the Internet.

thethings.iO – the IoT cloud solution

We offer the total package: back-end support for your cloud solution, a customizable front-end user interface, analytical tools, interoperability, and guaranteed protection of your company’s data- free for developers (as well as more extensive services available to startups for a fraction of the average market price).

Our aim is to make the Internet disappear and cut costs and production time for developers in the process, all while simultaneously improving the functionality of the product as well as the UX. What does that mean? It means hardware companies get to focus on building cool new things, and we focus on providing the connections and all of the support they need.

The future of technology is the Internet of Things. The future of technology is in your hands. Join thethings.iO

/0 Comments/by
, ,

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!

/1 Comment/by

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

/0 Comments/by
,

Learn Electric Imp in 5 minutes #IoTFriday

Welcome at the new edition of the IoTFriday at thethings.iO. Today let me show you a quick overview about how to learn Electric Imp, in a little bit more than 5 minutes. With this quick introduction we show how to blink up the Electric Imp, what is Squirrel and how to program devices and agents. Enjoy!

BTW now you can connect Electric Imp with thethings.iO with the official library!

The main part of the Electric Imp platform are the Imps. The Imps are these tiny modules (some with SD card size if they are developers edition) with CPU, memory and WiFi plugged with electronics through a shield and the GPIOs for sensors and actuators.

To blink up the imps and connect them to the Internet, is needed to BlinkUp them with a patented system that flashes the Electric Imps through the mobile device display. That means, that the WiFi SSID and password is transmitted through blinks.

These imps are connected to the Electric Imp cloud through the WiFi, and every one has an agent running on the cloud that attends the events that affect the device.

Electric Imp SD card developer edition

Electric Imp SD card developer edition

The Web IDE from Electric Imp is simple but it works effectively. The console and the agents are running very well (usually). During next days we are going to publish theThings.IO Electric Imp libraries and code examples.

Sign up at thethings.iO and eel free to send us comments and feedback and even topics for the next IoTFriday

/0 Comments/by
,

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!

/0 Comments/by
, ,

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.

Read more →

/3 Comments/by