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.
Posts Tagged: API
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]
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]
22
Mar 12
Accessing Historical Data on a ThingSpeak Channel
We have recently received a few email about accessing historical data. We even noticed some posts on other forums asking about older data.
All ThingSpeak Channels are continuous logs of data. Using API commands, you can access recent data and historical data. The default API parameters allow for easy access to recent data. To get access to older data, all you need to do is pass in a “start” and “end” parameter into a channel request.
Here is my feed from New Year’s Eve:
http://api.thingspeak.com/channels/9/feed.json?start=2011-12-31%2000:00:00&end=2012-01-01%2000:00:00
And remember, you can also do this with charts too:
Let us know if you need any more clarification on the many API parameters possible. Have fun!
PS. Some big features coming soon!
07
Dec 11
CheerLights: Connecting Lights Together to Bring Us Closer
It’s that time of year… holiday time and family time. I was inspired this time to create a project that brings us a little closer. Lights are a big part of the holidays and with CheerLights you can connect your lights to other lights via Twitter with a little help by ThingSpeak Apps.
Since the project release, there has been much activity. A part from CheerLights being discussed on blogs like MAKE and Lifehacker, the community has created some interesting bits of tech that extend the project further than lights. So if you don’t have a way to connect your lights together with CheerLights, you can connect your mobile phone, browser, and web sites together by subscribing to the CheerLights feed. Right now you can check the latest CheerLights color with an Android App created by @ChrisLeitner. Another really neat thing is a browser plugin for Chrome designed by Josh Crumley. So, in the top corner of your web browser you can see the latest color in an unassuming way. It’s a little reminder that we are connected.
To join CheerLights, all you have to do is build something that subscribed to the CheerLights ThingSpeak Channel or access the data using JSON and XML. You can also use the apps, browser plugins, or web widgets to see the colors. Visit the CheerLights website hosted on Tumblr for details on making a controller with Arduino, ioBridge, or Digi’s ConnectPort.
To control CheerLights, just send a Tweet to @CheerLights and mention a color.
Just think when you send this Tweet that you are updating 1000′s of lights, apps, browsers, and widgets all at the same time.
Spread some cheer…
[via MAKE / Lifehacker / CBC / ioBridge Projects]
29
Nov 11
ThingSpeak visits the Pittsburgh Ruby Users Group
Hans Scharler is stopping by the monthly meeting of the Pittsburgh Ruby Users Group. The topic on the agenda is ThingSpeak, an open source Ruby on Rails application for the Internet of Things. The meeting is scheduled for December 1, 2011 and starts at 7:30pm.
Topics on the agenda:
- Switch over to Ruby on Rails 3.1
- ThingSpeak v2.0
- Active ThingSpeak Projects
- Adding modularity and tests to the GitHub repository
- …btw, we’re hiring!
Background on ThingSpeak:
ThingSpeak is an open source web application and API to manage devices, to create device interactions, and to store data. Users can use the hosted version of ThingSpeak or setup instances on their own servers by getting the source code from GitHub. The technology behind ThingSpeak is Ruby 1.9.2, Rails 3.0, EventMachine, Phusion Passenger, Nginx, and Memcached to form a highly scalable infrastructure for the emerging Internet of Things and its data model requirements.
You use ThingSpeak to Send and Receive “data” via simple HTTP requests, much like going to a web page and filling out a form. Data can be from
anything — Blood Sugar Levels measured by a glucose meter, Server Usage and Uptime reported by servers, or Location Info from a mobile phone. Once the data is in ThingSpeak, you can build applications that retrieve the data, use the data for process decision-making, and reporting.
17
Oct 11
Arduino 1.0 to ThingSpeak Sketch
The Arduino team recently released the release candidate of Arduino 1.0 on Google Code. It’s a available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Version 1.0 of Arduino’s IDE includes enhancements to the GUI and additions and changes to the Arduino Hardware API. Since the release, we have been beta testing Arduino 1.0-rc1 and find the updates to be spot on. This is definitely a step forward. A big change that affects ThingSpeak Arduino Sketches is the inclusion of DHCP and DNS support to the Ethernet library, which was integrated by Adrian McEwen. We are able to use the new Arduino 1.0 to make it as easy as possible to connect the Arduino platform to the Internet. Download the latest Arduino IDE on Google Code.
We have created a new ThingSpeak Sketch for Arduino 1.0 that you can use for the Arduino and Ethernet Shield or the Arduino Ethernet all-in-one. All you have to do is add your ThingSpeak Write API Key to the sketch, upload to the Arduino, and connect to your network. The sketch includes automatic network configuration with DHCP, domain name resolution using DNS, a watchdog / reset function to keep the Arduino online, and a function to update ThingSpeak Channels. The new sketch has been running without hiccup in our lab for few weeks. We hope that you get the same reliability. Go ahead and copy, transform, and combine…
31
Aug 11
Home Automation System HomeVisionXL adds ThingSpeak Plugin
HomeVisionXL adds a ThingSpeak Plugin for environmental data logging to their home automation controller. HomeVisionXL “is a cross-platform tool for developing schedules for the HomeVision integrated home controller.” The plugin was created by ThingSpeak user [bgardner] and adds data logging capability to the HomeVision home automation system.
Visit the ThingSpeak Plugin page for more information on how to use this plugin with your HomeVision home automation system.
08
Jul 11
Seamless Twitter Integration [API Update]
We recently updated the ThingSpeak Channel API to allow you to update a channel feed and send Tweets all in one request. All you have to do is send your Twitter username that’s linked to ThingTweet and what you want to Tweet with a standard update to your ThingSpeak Channel. You can update Twitter, track the location, and add status context all with one API call. Use this feature when you want to highlight certain data and share it with your friends and family. Visit the ThingSpeak API Documentation for more information.