{"id":2806,"date":"2021-05-07T12:36:37","date_gmt":"2021-05-07T16:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/?p=2806"},"modified":"2021-05-07T12:36:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-07T16:36:37","slug":"top-thingspeak-iot-questions-from-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/2021\/05\/07\/top-thingspeak-iot-questions-from-google\/","title":{"rendered":"Top ThingSpeak IoT Questions from Google"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We were searching around for <a href=\"https:\/\/thingspeak.com\">ThingSpeak IoT<\/a> resources and noticed that Google was sharing the top questions related to ThingSpeak. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/profile\/authors\/9598914\">Christopher Stapels<\/a> and I thought that it would be fun to answer them and share them as a blog post. So, here we are.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How do you use ThingSpeak?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Some people use ThingSpeak for monitoring machine processes. This allows them to share the data with potential customers and ensure the process is within control. There are over a <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/2020\/03\/17\/one-million-thingspeak-channels\/\">million<\/a> ThingSpeak channels representing a vast assortment of projects.\u00a0 Some projects measure the temperature and humidity in one room, some projects include a global network of air quality monitors. You can send data to ThingSpeak from your devices, create instant visualization of live data, and send alerts.<\/p>\n<h2>What type of data is accepted by ThingSpeak?<\/h2>\n<p>ThingSpeak accepts strings, integers, decimal degrees, and any encoded data. ThingSpeak stores data as strings of up to 255 characters per field. ThingSpeak organizes data by channels, where a channel represents data from a given device or process. Each channel contains eight data fields, three fields for location: latitude, longitude, and elevation, and one extra field for a status report.\u00a0 If you write a number into a field (integer or float), ThingSpeak will display the numbers in field charts on your <a href=\"https:\/\/thingspeak.com\/channels\/486090\">channel view<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thingspeak.com\/channels\/486090\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1184\" height=\"634\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2808\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/files\/2021\/05\/thingspeak_channel_view.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Is ThingSpeak free?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>Yes, for non-commercial use.<\/strong> ThingSpeak has different license types for different intended uses. The free license has some restrictions. Purchasing a paid license allows a faster update rate and the creation of additional channels. \u00a0For more info, see <a href=\"https:\/\/thingspeak.com\/prices\">How to Buy<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/thingspeak.com\/pages\/license_faq\">ThingSpeak FAQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How do you collect data from ThingSpeak?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Once your data is stored in ThingSpeak, you can retrieve your data from ThingSpeak from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/help\/thingspeak\/thingspeakread.html\">MATLAB<\/a>, a REST API, or MQTT API.<\/p>\n<p>Many devices can take advantage of the ThingSpeak library for <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/mathworks\/thingspeak-arduino\">Arduino<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/mathworks\/thingspeak-particle\">Particle<\/a> devices. You can use the address bar in your web browser to test updating a channel via the REST API.<\/p>\n<p>Use this format to update your field.<\/p>\n<pre>https:\/\/api.thingspeak.com\/update?api_key=&lt;YOUR_API KEY&gt;&amp;field1=&lt;YOUR_VALUE&gt;<\/pre>\n<p><strong>If you have any questions for Christopher, myself, or the rest of the community, ask them at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/matlabcentral\/topics\/thingspeak.html?q=&amp;page=1\">ThingSpeak Community<\/a> site.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"overview-image\"><img decoding=\"async\"  class=\"img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/files\/2021\/05\/thingspeak_channel_view.png\" onError=\"this.style.display ='none';\" \/><\/div>\n<p>We were searching around for ThingSpeak IoT resources and noticed that Google was sharing the top questions related to ThingSpeak. Christopher Stapels and I thought that it would be fun to answer&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/2021\/05\/07\/top-thingspeak-iot-questions-from-google\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,3,295],"tags":[210,209,8,7],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2806"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2812,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions\/2812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/iot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}