Posts Tagged: Open Data


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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]

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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.

[via Pittsburgh Ruby Users Group]

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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.

Arduino 1.0 and ThingSpeak Examples

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…

View Arduino 1.0 –> ThingSpeak Sketch on GitHub

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14
Oct 11

ThingSpeak ‘Speaks’ Brazilian Portuguese

[paulo] is from Brazil and uses Portuguese as his primary language. He grabbed the English language file from our GitHub repository and translated it into Brazilian Portuguese. Now, when anyone from Brazil or someone set to Brazil (pt-BR) as a locale on their device visits ThingSpeak.com, the entire ThingSpeak web application is presented in Brazilian Portuguese.

ThingSpeak in Brazil

Here’s what ThingSpeak is in Brazilian Portuguese: ThingSpeak é um projeto de Internet Aberta das Coisas feito pela ioBridge!

Thank you much, Paulo or should we say, “Muito obrigado, Paulo?”

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01
Sep 11

DIY Weather Station with Arduino, Processing, and ThingSpeak

[lars] created a weather station from scratch using sensors and bits from SparkFun and Adafruit. Lars wanted to log weather data and access it from remotely. He built the weather station using humidity, temperature, pressure, and light sensors collecting data from his apartment in Ithaca, NY. Originally, Lars was collecting data with his own web application created with PHP and MySQL. He has since started publishing his data to ThingSpeak where others can view the data and potentially build applications.

ThingSpeak Weather Station

Behind the scenes, Lars uses the Arduino microcontroller to collect data from the sensors and uses Processing to publish data to his ThingSpeak Channel.

From Lars’ project site:

The goal of this project is to log some weather data and be able to access it from anywhere. There is some sensor data (temperature, relative humidity, pressure, and ambient light) and some computed data (dew point). You can see the weather condition in my apartment in Ithaca, NY at my Thing Speak Channel 346. You can also look at the Google Chart of my own MySQL solution, which I no longer maintain.

Check out a detailed breakdown of the Weather Station project and more awesome projects on Lars’ project site, called “make.larsi.org“.

[via make.larsi.org]

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30
Aug 11

ThingSpeak Charts are Internet Explorer 6 Approved

You may not use Internet Explorer 6 anymore, but maybe a family member or a customer still uses it. And, you want them to be able to see your sensor data and applications. We also wanted to have the widest compatibility possible for the biggest audience. Our charts use JavaScript to give the viewer much more detail behind the data points themselves vs. static charts. However, we are dependent on what a user uses to see the charts. We have made some enhancements and now all versions of Internet Explorer since version 6 work great with ThingSpeak. Of course the charts work great on all other modern desktop / iPhone and Android mobile browsers.

ThingSpeak is Internet Explorer Approved