We have updated our ThingTweet Tutorial to cover the Arduino Ethernet and the new Arduino IDE (v1 and above). ThingTweet is a ThingSpeak App that allows you to send Twitter status updates via your Arduino microcontroller with an Ethernet shield or with Ethernet integrated onto one board. Our Arduino examples for ThingSpeak and ThingSpeak Apps have been moved to GitHub, so that you can easily download, modify, and contribute updates.
Author Archives
21
Nov 12
Real-time Gas Sensor System with Microsoft Gadgeteer and ThingSpeak
TinyCLR master user [Duke Nukem] created a project using the Microsoft Gadgeteer and ThingSpeak Internet of Things web services. The Gadgeteer allows modular hardware development with plug-and-play sensors and controls. Mr. Nukem built a real-time gas sensor monitoring system that uploads its data to a ThingSpeak Channel. Once the data is on ThingSpeak, other developers can tap into the data and use it for control systems or for creating apps that process, analyze, and visualize the data. Duke also posts data and warnings to social networks such as Twitter via ThingSpeak’s ThingTweet web service.
Duke says,
“A demo of how to use ThingSpeak (an IOT web site) with a Gadgeteer Gas Sensor Device. Data from the sensors are displayed in real time on ThingSpeak and using some of ThingSpeak’s cool features the Gas Sensor device can send out Tweets for Alert and Alarm conditions.”
Another awesome part of this project is that it uses .NET Micro Framework library, μPLibrary 1.8, created by [paolopat]. This library makes it really easy to tap into ThingSpeak web services by embedded devices. It’s great to see different parts of the project coming together from multiple ThingSpeak users. We appreciate the creative combinations and the efforts that you are putting into your projects. Thanks!
For more information, check out the live sensor readings on the project’s ThingSpeak Channel and download the complete source code at Codeshare.
[via TinyCLR Forums]
16
Nov 12
EVE Alpha – Raspberry Pi Wireless Development
Kickstarter over the past few months has been the platform of choice for new Internet of Things hardware being developed. Many projects are an Arduino and another thing attached to it. While some of those projects are cool, they are not pushing the Internet of Things forward. Recently, Kickstarter changed their policies about hardware projects and also opened up the platform to the United Kingdom. This is forcing the projecteers to come up with more developed and innovative ideas that help differentiate themselves from rehashed projects and ideas.
One that has piqued our interest is the EVE Alpha for the Raspberry Pi created by Ciseco from Nottingham, United Kingdom. Wireless is a key part of the Internet of Things as with wireless we can connect more things in a more seamless way, then bridge them to the Internet. EVE Alpha aims at giving you a lot of wireless options in a tiny form factor all connected to an integrated computer called the Raspberry Pi.
Members of the ThingSpeak team are backers of this project and many others. We love finding new ways to get data to and from web services. This is exactly what we are here to do! We are looking forward to connecting the EVE to a host of web services (and ones we haven’t even released yet). Another key feature is the suite of wireless technologies that we want to prototype with all on one board. At the timing of this writing the EVE Alpha Kickstarter campaign is close to being funded, so there are high chances that Ciseco will deliver the Swiss Army knife of wireless development platforms!
[via Kickstarter]
30
Oct 12
μPLibrary – .NET Micro Framework Client for ThingSpeak Platform
.NET Micro Framework Developer [paolopat] created a client for the ThingSpeak platform. This allows any device that supports the .NET Micro Framework to access ThingSpeak web services by using the μPLibrary 1.8. The library is available on NuGet Gallery and abstracts the ThingSpeak API. The library works with the popular Netduino Plus and other devices running .NET Micro Framework.
Paolo says,
“With more and more embedded devices “smart” in the world, begins to take on an increasingly important concept of the Internet of Things (IoT), a neologism by which you want to express the capacity that these devices (brutally “things”) in order to connect to the world wide web and exchange information. In this come into play a number of online platforms that provide the service to upload and logging information in real-time making it available to other devices that request them. The architecture is oriented such that the platform is obviously RESTful where the data grouped into channels and feeds are accessible through the concept of URL.
One of the main platforms is certainly ThingSpeak, for which I have implemented a client for. NET Micro Framework and I have included in my library uPLibrary (now at version 1.8.0.0) present on CodePlex, namespace uPLibrary.IoT.ThingSpeak.”
Thank you, Paolo!
[via Embedded101]
06
Sep 12
Open Hardware Summit 2012
The Open Hardware Summit is September 27th, 2012 in New York City at Eyebeam. For the second year, ThingSpeak is sponsoring the event!
The OHS was a blast last year. We got to meet all the Open Source Hardware heroes that are pushing this movement forward. Our part in all this is to push open platforms to connect all that open hardware. ThingSpeak is growing very quickly as you see projects pop-up every day. We will be releasing our two-year numbers and the latest stats just before the Open Hardware Summit. Just a hint about what you will hear… we doubled in size over the last 6 months!
Sponsorship opportunities are still available!
04
Sep 12
Slot Car Race Powered by Twitter
The community from RS Components created a Scalextric Slot Car Race that is powered by your tweets. Two cars went head-to-head last week with a live Twitter race between a red and blue car. The cars move based on the number of Tweets that included their hashtag. If you want the blue car to win, you needed to Tweet, “Go #RSBlueTeam”. The team wrote a web service like TweetControl that pulls in tweets from the Twitter Stream and distributes commands to an Arduino that controls the track. This is another great project that further demonstrates how social intersects with technology and marketing. Go Tweet Racer!
[via Facebook]
29
Aug 12
Solar Panel Data Logging to ThingSpeak
ThingSpeak user, “SolarInKrimpen”, from Rotterdam, Netherlands, created a solar power monitoring system that reports data collected by solar panels and feeds the data to web services such as ThingSpeak, Cosm, and PVoutput. They are collecting data such as, AC Wattage collected by a Pulse Counter, Totak KWH per day, temperature of the solar panels, and the carbon offset.
Take a look at the data in real-time from ThingSpeak Channel 2871:
We also found a video showing the system in action in super hero fashion.
UPDATE:
Over at the Netduino forums, we found the source code for the Netduino and HTML for the ThingSpeak gauges for embedding the solar panel data on a website. Awesome!
[via YouTube]
02
Jul 12
The ThingSpeak API now has a Ruby Gem, code on GitHub too
If you use Ruby to write programs and apps, Daniel Treacy created a Ruby wrapper for the ThingSpeak API. This Gem makes it easy to access the ThingSpeak API inside of your Ruby code.
For more information, check out our tutorial and visit GitHub for the full source code. Thanks Daniel!
[via RubyGems.org]
27
Jun 12
A Twitter Powered Gumball Machine Built on ThingSpeak + Arduino
Kevin, from the brilliant minds at Philter Communications, created a gumball machine known as the Tweet-a-Tweat. This clever device encourages social media interaction. People who visit your office need to send a Tweet to @tweetatweat to get a tasty gumball. The idea is to stimulate your brand by offering a real-world interaction. The combination of social media+internet of things forms a powerful link and the “web of things” vision emerges. We love working with our partners to enable strong(er) relationships with customers, coworkers, and visitors; and ultimately seeing new ideas take shape.
The technology behind Tweet-a-Tweat is Arduino + ThingSpeak — this is another powerful combination. The Gumball Machine is from Beaver Vending and has an Arduino inside listening to the TweetControl App from ThingSpeak. TweetControl listens to the Twitter stream for keywords that trigger HTTP requests in real-time. The heavy lifting happens in the cloud so that the embedded Arduino only has to focus on moving servos and being ready for web requests.
For more information, visit Tweet-a-Tweat and check out the live video feed of Philter’s Twitter powered gumball machine being operated live.
[via Tweet-a-Tweat]
04
Jun 12
Solar Hot Water Temperature Monitoring with Arduino + ThingSpeak
Here’s another “Klink Family Adventure”. The Klink’s created a solar water heater monitor using an Arduino connected to multiple waterproof DS18B20 temperature sensors. What’s great about this project is that it has the complete schematic and source code for interfacing multiple sensors to ThingSpeak at the same time. This is a common request in the ThingSpeak forum, so we are glad to see the code in the wild. The application is great. Monitoring the yield of a solar water heating system allows you to keep track of efficiency and savings.
Here’s what the temperature looks like now in Australia:
Check out the family’s blog for the source code and to learn how to create your own solar water heater monitoring system.
[via Klink Family Adventures]