IoT with LinkIt One

MediaTek offers a cloud service named MediaTek Cloud Sandbox for its LinkIt One, the all-in-one IoT board with WiFi, BLE, GMS/GPRS and GPS.

​I've followed and adapted the Weather Station Tutorial provided by MediaTek and used a WiFi connection.

Build the Dashboard  

  • Create a prototype.

Call the Development menu and press Create Prototype.

Provide the name and version, select the platform —here LinkIt One—, choose an industry and an application. Click on Save.
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  • Add channels

Select Prototype Details and press Add Data Channel.

Each channel corresponds to a data stream. There are currently two widgets available.
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Channels can work on either direction.

The first widget sends data to the board, and the second retrieves data from the board. More widgets are under development.

Enter the name, the ID and select the data type and the unit. Click on Save.
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  • Create a device

Once the prototype and the channels have been defined, create a device. Click on Create a device, provide a name and confirm by OK.

Note the device ID and key. Up to 10 devices can be defined.

​Program the Device

  • Write the sketch

Based on all the parameters defined, code snippets are available for each channel for Arduino and other environments. However, the Arduino snippet differs from the code included in the example. 
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Surprisingly, MediaTek doesn't provide the HTTP client library required for sending data to the MediaTek Cloud Sandbox. It needs to be downloaded separately.
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Send and Display Data

There are two available display modes, one for the last data received and another for the history.

However, data collected collected form the sensor contained erroneous values, as 106,5 °C or 1250.3 hPa. Actually, the LinkIt One MCU was going too fast for the sensor, so the library needed to be adapted. Adding a delay(10); fixed the issue.
MediaTek offers also Cloud Sandbox, an app for Android, to display the data.

The app features the same two modes, one for the last data received and another for the history.
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Conclusion

I liked the clear interface and organisation of this cloud solution.

Although the choice of widgets is limited to 2, both work efficiently. The only detail to improve is the supplied code, which needs some polishing.

The app for Android works fine. Let's expect the same app is coming for iOS!

Pros

  • Well explained tutorial
  • Bi-directional widgets

Cons

  • Key library to be downloaded separately

Wrap-Up

  • Clear interface
  • Android app
  • Some polishing required

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