IoT with Atmosphere IoT

One major challenge when developing IoT projects is to ensure the consistency between the embedded system, the smartphone app and the cloud dashboard. The Atmosphere IoT solution provides an interesting answer.
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This was prompted by the Smart Home Kit for Digi-Key IoT Studio - Feather ESP32 + Parts kit sold by Adafruit. The kit comes with a large assortment of home appliances: main MCU board based on the ESP32, relay, weather sensor (BME680: Temperature, Humidity, Pressure and VOC), 3-axis accelerometer, LEDs, motor and fan, magnetic contact switch, buzzer, cables, and a house!

The most interesting part of the kit is software, with an online IDE Digi-Key IoT Studio, actually a Digi-Key-branded version on the Atmosphere IoT tool. I didn't bough the kit but explored the Atmosphere IoT solution.

Software

The software includes three components:

​The online IDE targets the three components of the solution:
  • the executable on the embedded system,
  • the app on the Android or iOS smartphone,
  • the dashboard on the could.
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From left to right: The background, Android and iOS applications
​To each part of the solution corresponds a dedicated view on the IDE:
  • The code running on the MCU board, including the BLE services and characteristics, called device view, 
  • The code running on the Android or iOS smartphone, including the BLE connection, called application view,
  • The dashboard hosted on the cloud (not tested yet), called cloud view.​​​
From left to right: The device, application and cloud views

A Real Case

Atmosphere IoT comes with a wide range of examples. I picked the BME680 Demo Project designed for the RSL10 Sensor Development Kit and adapted it to the Adafruit Huzzah32.
The device view is about the code running on the MCU. Development relies on blocks, to be taken from the right pane of the screen.

Many boards and MCUs are supported, including Arduino, Adafruit and Raspberry Pi, Atmel AVR and PIC32, Espressif, Nordic, STMicroelectronics, Cypress, ON Semiconductor.
Services and characteristics are defined automatically for the BLE block.
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The generated source can be displayed and downloaded.

​Launch the Atmosphere Client Agent first to upload the executable to the board. Unfortunately, the Atmosphere IoT Agent was detected neither on macOS 10.15.3 Catalina nor on Windows 10. Rebooting the computer solved the issue, but only once.
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The application view focuses on the smartphone interface. The BLE services and characteristics are populated automatically.
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​Here, a toggle switch sends commands to the BLE block.


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It took me multiple attempts to obtain the Father ESP32 listed among the devices on the smartphone app. 

Similarly, the app doesn't seem to manage the screen size properly, hiding the close or return buttons on the very bottom.

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Finally, the cloud view designs the dashboard on the cloud.

​I haven't tested this part.



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However, when I tried to adapt the BME680 Demo Project designed for the RSL10 Sensor Development Kit to the Adafruit Huzzah32, I didn't manage to get it work.  

Conclusion

Atmosphere IoT is still a young product, with annoying bugs and interface issues. Improving stability is urgent to deliver all the potential of its promises. 

Similarly, I am not a big fan of internet-only solution, as connection to internet raises many issues of both reliability and security, as per DNS DDoS, IDE and IoT and The Requirements for IoT, An Update. I would appreciate to run the system on a local server.

In the meantime, ​Blynk offers a much better experience, although without the cloud part.

Pros

  • Consistency across node, smartphone and cloud
  • Excellent documentation and reference

Cons

  • Online only, no option for local server
  • Some parameters for some nodes are not clear

Wrap-Up

  • Consistency across node, smartphone and cloud
  • Online only, no option for local server
  • Too many bugs and interface issues

Links
Posted: 10 Feb 2020
Updated: