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thethings.iO launches their FREE IoT Cloud Solution

This past summer, thethings.iO was selected amongst some six hundred plus startups as the winner of the Wayra Weekend in Barcelona. Since then, we have moved to the Wayra HW at Telefonica Tower in Barcelona, as one of many emerging startups in the Wayra acceleration program. As an accelerated startup, we have had the opportunity to expand our knowledge and have enhanced our capacity to engage in new projects.

thethings.iO team working (source: Tyba)

thethings.iO team working

In the past, what we offered was limited to what we called the “social network of the ‘Internet of Things,’” but we have since then developed our own IoT Cloud Solution that is ready for launch. We are now offering back-end support for your cloud solution, a customizable front-end user interface, analytical tools, and guaranteed interoperability.

With the launch of thethings.iO IoT Cloud Solution, we will be better equipped to handle the IoT needs of developers, and are currently looking for new customers with things to connect. While we have already begun to foster a number of partnerships, we are excited to invite individual developers as well as IoT startups and companies to start their membership. We are offering free accounts for developers, providing the opportunity to try our services through the connection of three things.

In addition to the free membership, we are also offering a premium account. Developers and IoT companies who would like to continue with unlimited services can connect their things for 1€ per thing, per year.

If you are interested in creating a premium account, please contact us (hello at thethings.io) directly as we do not yet have a mechanism for accepting payments at the moment.

We can’t wait to see what you create!

thethings.iO team

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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!

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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

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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!

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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 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

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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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