Instructables – Internet of Things

Learn How to Build a Custom Android App for a ThingSpeak IoT Project

Hans Scharler — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 19:35:12 +0000

ThingSpeak has APIs for collecting data produced by sensors and APIs for reading that data from applications. Think of an IoT project as two parts. One part of the project is where you need to program a thing to send data. And, the second part is where you want to see that data. ThingSpeak sits in the middle and makes it handy to do both, as Marcelo Rovai points out. Once you have a system like Marcelo’s set up, you can take advantage of integrated online MATLAB Analytics.

Marcelo has put together a great tutorial that uses ThingSpeak in the middle to collect data from sensors and then display the sensor readings on a custom Android app running on a mobile phone. He uses the MIT App Inventor to create a custom Android app to see the sensor data and status of the system. This project uses easily accessible hardware to build a proof-of-concept IoT system to monitor air temperature, humidity, soil temperature, soil humidity, and luminosity. Other people could modify this project with different sensors or actuators and build something for their own purposes or build a prototype for your next meeting at work.

Check out the full project tutorial on Arduino Project Hub and Instructables. Marcelo provides all of the parts, code, and instructions to make your own prototype IoT system monitored and controlled by a mobile app.

Forgetting Something on Your To Do List? Use MATLAB to Analyze Your Tasks.

Hans Scharler — Fri, 09 Sep 2016 18:34:59 +0000

Allie Fauer, a designer from New York, has released another awesome Instructable tutorial on how to build a “To Do List Reminder Light”. This project is very creative and easy to build on your own. Allie tracks her tasks on an app called Todoist. With a little help of the MATLAB Analysis app on ThingSpeak, Allie is able to analyze her tasks and alert herself of anything overdue. She gently reminds herself with a glowing “Remembrall” globe.

Allie uses the MATLAB Analysis app on ThingSpeak to check her to do list and see if anything is overdue. If a task is overdue, the MATLAB code writes the task overdue into a ThingSpeak channel. The MATLAB code is very straightforward and does a bit of analysis on her task list to see what is overdue. To get the MATLAB Analysis code to keep checking her task last, she schedules the MATLAB code using the TimeControl app on ThingSpeak.

Allie also has other ideas on how to make use of her status light:

Alert you when you’ve forgotten to water your plants
Tell you when you’re out or range of important objects like your keys or wallet
Combine with IFTTT to alert you when you’ve forgotten to respond to emails or phone notifications

To build your own Remembrall light, follow the step-by-step tutorial on Instructables.

Let Your Plants Tweet Using Spark and ThingSpeak

Hans Scharler — Fri, 27 Feb 2015 19:27:01 +0000

Head over to Instructables to learn how to make your plants Tweet using Spark Wi-Fi and ThingSpeak. Gregory Fenton created a project that monitors his plant’s soil moisture and then notifies him via Twitter when it is time to water it.

Greg built the project out of necessity to help his plants suffering from “localized drought”. Let’s hope his plants get proper watering and that other ThingSpeak users can quickly and easily build this project. Thanks for sharing!

[via Instructables]

[Instructables] Wi-Fi Temperature Data Logger

Hans Scharler — Fri, 03 Oct 2014 16:45:24 +0000

[noel portugal] is at it again! This time Noel created a simple Wi-Fi based sensor data logger using ThingSpeak, the ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, and a digital temperature sensor. At the heart of the project is a low-cost Wi-Fi module that could be the basis for many Internet of Things projects.

Everything you need to know in order to build your own sensor logging project is on Noel’s Instructables.

[via Instructables]

Indoor Environmental Quality Station

Hans Scharler — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:31:57 +0000

[donmatito] created an Indoor Environmental Quality Station based on the Arduino platform and uses Bluetooth for connectivity to ThingSpeak cloud services. The great news is that Don completely documented the project at Instructables for others to learn from and add to. By using ThingSpeak he has made it easy to get access to the data with an app and share the data with other users.

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is the measure of comfort and includes factors such as temperature, humidity, pressure, noise level, and indoor air quality. don’s original goal was to monitor the IEQ of his baby’s room, but he soon realized that his project has more applications around the house and for others.

Don published the full details of the project and submitted it to the Green Design Contest at Instructables. Great work!

[via Instructables]