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Internet of (Boxing) Things

How to connect boxing gloves to the Internet in real-time

Boxer thethings.iO

Probably you already have seen punching bags in fairs and theme parks with a counter where you and your friends were able to play and to know who was the strongest puncher, right? It was not a connected punching bag, but anyway we are not going to talk about this. We imagined a real boxing glove that enable boxers to record in real-time the force of the punchs! Keep reading!

Our boxing glove has been connected to the Internet through an Electric Imp and some force sensor inside the glove, actually on the front of it. These sensors determine the force, in real-time, that a person uses when boxing with the glove. The data is sent in real time from the glove to the Electric Imp via Wi-Fi. Then, the Imp’s Agent sends it straight to  thethings.iO. In next posts we will publish the code to let you replicate our experiment in your house.

Testing our boxing gloves in Dublin

Testing our boxing gloves in Dublin

The IoT boxing club real-time dashboard

The IoT boxing club real-time dashboard

Can you imagine yourself watching the boxing fight on TV and also knowing the force that has each boxer in real time? Well, it is possible with thethings.iO. Do you want to see it by yourself? Who is the real strongest IoT man or woman in the world? Soon, it will be easily known.

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thethings.iO at Betabeers Barcelona

On the 20th of April, Marc Pous, CEO of thething.iO, presented our startup at the  Betabeers meeting that took place at the Mobile World Center in Barcelona, Spain. Betabeers is a community of developers that organize monthly meetings to talk about technology and startups.

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Marc explained to about twenty developers and a number of investors what the thethings.iO consists of as well as the cost for our services. A shortened summary of what was said would consist of as follows.

At the thing.iO we help companies that make hardware connect them to the internet in a quick and easy manor. Since we know that making hardward is a hard and cumbersome project, we provide an IoT cloud solution which allows companies to store real-time data from their devices. It has been very exciting as we are beginning to see our company grow and be given some interesting projects.

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

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Internet of Things; Why? Because we can…

IoT - The Big Bang Theory

Everyone knows the comedy show The Big Bang Theory. We knew everyone was talking about the Internet of Things, but to our surprise, an episode of this hit comedy show suggests the main characters, Leonard and Sheldon, connect their flat lights and stereo using an X-10 system.

You can notice this in the video:

 

For anyone out there wondering why this is done, the most famous nerds of The Big Bang Theory have a simple answer for you: “Because we can.”

Technology is always growing and advancing for one main reason: convenience and simplicity. We use technology to make our lives easier. We are always looking for ways to efficiently use our time and technology provides that incentive for us. The Internet of Things also does this; it has become a big part of our daily lives whether we realize it or not.

We provide simple ways to help companies and developers connect to the internet in a timely and easy manner through our APIs.

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

 

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thethings.iO on Forbes!

Forbes website talked about thethings.iO as one of the easiest IoT platforms that connects devices with the cloud

A few weeks ago we had made a post about how excited we were about being featured in VenturesBeat. If you’d like to see this article feel free to click here.

However, today we are thrilled to announce something a bit larger, last week thethings.io appeared in Forbes!

thethings.iO on Forbes

Barcelona-based thethings.iO is the latest entrant into the IoT cloud market. It proclaims to be the “Amazon Web Services (AWS) for IoT companies”. Though it seems to be yet another backend with ingestion API and real-time analytics support, the key differentiating factor is in its interoperability. thethings.iO is one the few platforms to expose both REST and CoAP APIs.Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is a protocol designed to be used in low-powered devices to allow them to communicate over the Internet. It is targeted at sensors, switches, valves, and actuators that are controlled remotely via standard Internet networks. Both REST and CoAP follow the same pattern of using HTTP verbs. thethings.iO uses CoAP to perform operations like activation, reading, writing and subscribing to sensors and channels. After completing the sign-up process, developers can grab an activation code to start pushing the sensor data to the platform. The node.js SDK is available on github.

Thethings.iO appeared next to some other awesome IoT startups from around the world, such as Konekt, TempoIQ, SensorCloud, Xively, Temboo and PubNub. But what makes us different from other IoT startups? The main factor is our interoperability. thethings.io is capable to expose REST, MQTT and CoAP APIs, which allows different kinds of devices to use cases to communicate over the Internet. Forbes’ article sums up all of this in their article, so make sure to check the whole piece out.

Stay tuned for more exciting posts from thethings.iO about The Internet of Things and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and be sure to check out our #IoTFriday blog!

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thethings.iO favorite watches and wearables

Wearable’s have become a hot topic among the Internet of Things tech enthusiasts. As the launch of the Apple Watch approaches, smart watches in particular have been weighing on everyone’s minds.

apple-watches

The various Apple Watch products will provide the opportunity for users to access most of the information that exists on their iPhone from their wrists. Everything from fitness tracking to checking your calendar, the Apple Watch will offer an impressive plethora of functions. In the meantime though, thethings.iO is excited to share some of our favorites, more affordable wearable’s on the market today: the Pebble watch, Motorola’s Moto 360, and Withings’ Activité Pop.

Read more →

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thethings.iO Datacenter: Security and Privacy

As a client based company, we love answering any questions we receive from our customers. The most common one is: Where will my data be hosted? Is that secure and private?

We are happy to announce that our datacenter is in one of the most disruptive places in Barcelona: The Zoo of Barcelona.

One of the new services of the Zoo of Barcelona is the Lion tier. This is where we ensure that the servers are safe and secure in the lions cage. The only people who have access to the servers are the lions and the caregivers of the lions, who sometimes reset the servers when we call them to deploy new versions of the software.

Servers of thethings.iO

Servers of thethings.iO

We are very proud to say that our datacenter is very sustainable. If there is any problem with the manure from the zoo animals, we provide bikes at the monkeys cage that can bring extra energy at the datacenter SAI. Next year, we hope to bring in machines with more intensive CPUs to the shark swimming pool; first to cool down the temperature of the computers and then to increase security.

We hope to see you at one of our datacenters in the city. If you ask the Zoo of Barcelona to bring your cloud solution into their datacenter, they will give you a 10% discount during the first year.

Happy April Fools for the team at thethings.iO! We hope we didn’t scare you too much.

 

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thethings.iO is part of Hack4Europe

 

Hack4Europe

Hack4Europe

We are happy to announce that thethings.io will have the opportunity to be a part of the first on-line hackathon, hack4Europe.

This contest will allow us to connect with the most innovative start-ups, boost collective intelligence by using new APIs, get the opportunities to meet larger companies and win up to 50 000 Euros in rewards.

The teams have until May 16 to submit a project or join existing teams. The teams will need to choose any of the 30 APIs to start a project. There will be events in Madrid, Paris, Berlin and London with physical meet ups and mentorship for the teams. Finalists will be rewarded with trips to San Francisco, mobile devices and wearable’s.

Thethings.io is honored to be a part of this event. It will assist us in becoming familiar will different ways technology can be hacked which has allowed us to take the correct preventative actions to eliminate the risk of hackers in our system by being knowledgeable and experienced in this subject field.

 

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Ready for the Mobile World Congress 2015? At thethings.iO we are! #MWC15

This week we are so excited to announce that thethings.iO will be attending Barcelona’s 2015 Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s largest annual gathering of its kind. Over the past few years we have seen a shift in the focus of the event towards IoT innovation, and as a result there has been a great influx in Internet of Things gadgets showcased, developers and startups attending the event, showcasing and debating the latest trends and topics in IoT technology. Here is a detailed schedule of our whereabouts for the week so you can find us amidst the mobile madness of MWC 2015.

Mobile World Congress Barcelona

Mobile World Congress Barcelona

Sunday

thethings.iO will kick off this weekend at the Mobile Sunday event that will be held at the Antiga Fabrica Estrella Damm. Mobile Sunday is an opportunity for startups and developers to pitch their plans and products to potential investors and network with other attendees before the start of the conference. We will be there pitching and networking as ever.

Monday
thethings.iO will be at the IoT Stars competition which is an event our very own CEO Marc Pous has worked tirelessly to help organize. Narrowed down from some 50 applications a top-notch jury will have to decide in the final challenge for the glory of being named the top emerging IoT startup of MWC 2015.

Tuesday

Stop by the Wayra booth at 4YFN, to learn about Wayra and to catch up on all the most recent thethings.iO projects. 4YFN is a great chance for startups to meet with with one another as well as show off to investors so it is sure to be an exciting event!

Wednesday

In case you missed us during the rest of the week, come hear thethings.iO CEO Marc Pous at the WIP Developer Smackdown Wednesday afternoon at the Fàbrica Moritz Barcelona. He will be engaging in a lively debate with Oasys CTO Marc Mateu Mateus, and Superclock Technologist Emanuele Libralato, regarding the prototyping and development of hardware and wearables.

Following the Smackdown, you can follow Marc to Barcelona’s Wearable Wednesday event where he will join a panel discussing future possibilities of IoT integration into cities. The City of San Francisco and Wearable world have partnered to present an initiative they call the IOT For Cities Initiative, where they have begun to develop IoT solutions to the many problems faced by cities across the globe.

If you will be attending any of these events and wish to connect with Marc and thethings.iO mention us on twitter @thethingsIo or shoot us an email at hello@thethings.io. We can’t wait to see you there!

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