IoT with PubNub and freeboard
Send with PubNub
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PubNub offers a free plan for 100 active devices per day and 1 million messages. Storage and security management are paid options.
When creating a new applications, PubNub generates three keys: a publish key, a subscribe key and a secret key. PubNub provides an extensive documentation with a long list of platforms supported with examples for Arduino, mbed, LaunchPad and many more embedded platforms. PubNub also features a debug console that displays all the messages. Here, the storage option has been activated. |
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The only tricky part is formatting the message using JSON. Fortunately, there's a library available and ready to use.
Energia includes the PubNub and JSON libraries. |
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Visualise with freeboard
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freeboard adopts a minimalistic approach for its interface and the graphics it displays. This approach makes the service really easy to use.
The dashboard shown on the right took me less than 5 minutes to build. By default, the dashboards are public. Making them private is a paid option. Select first a data-source. For PubNub, provide the subscribe key and the name of the channel name. However, the recommended service is dweet.io, another service of Bug Labs, which operates dweet and freeboard. |
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Add a pane with an optional title.
Finally, add a widget. Select the type and define the options. Selecting the data is easy as all the options are displayed interactively. |
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Conclusion
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I really like the ease of use of this solution. Energia comes with the PubNub and JSON libraries ready to use. The dashboard was really easy to implement.
Now, there is no possibility to program an action, like sending a message if a condition is met. The targeted usage is a real-time dashboard. Privacy is a paid option, for both the transport and the visualisation. |
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Pros
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Cons
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Wrap-Up
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